The SFFaudio Podcast #819 – READALONG: We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick

The SFFaudio Podcast #819 – Jesse, Will Emmons and Jonathan Weichsel talk about We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick

Talked about on today’s show:
Fantasy And Science Fiction, April 1966, not perfectly representative of everything he can do, Total Recall (1987), very easy to watch, a transitional movie for Hollywood, last big budget, extended CGI sequence, through the X-Ray, all hand drawn, blonde guy with glasses helping Richter, looks like CGI, we can look this up sometime, not in the story, a lot of the stuff that’s in the story is in the movie, he never goes to Mars during the course of the story, the movie is an action film, still also tame, wow, a famous story, famous stories, they don’t meet the hype, a bad relationship with his wife, a bad relationship that week, interesting, it doesn’t have to be good to be successful, Jesse’s Lester Del Rey theory, came out 6 (or 7 months ago), the park bench, telepathically, so not filmic, the ending was a little silly but fine, the ending kid of ruined the story, Hollywood does it a lot, a Rod Serling ending, he’s not writing movies, his way, think about what happens in this, he actually was an agent for interplan, the space police, he’s remembering what happened, replacement memory, suppressed memory, an amazing coincidence, they did a psychological analysis of his character, his deep seated wish, just by existing he saves the planet, Philip K. Dick thumbing the nose at himself, an extra turn of the screw, he fucks them up on purpose, a nice little circle, an electronic animals, fleshy animals, the pulling the rug out from his own idea, there’s no bottom to his solipsism, how to put a button on the story, the movie improves on the short story, the primal cause, the first cause of the story, nobody else could have, make Plato a pulp science fiction story, a terrible ending, silly, his way out, that park bench sequence is so bad, look at that homeless man talking to himself, wouldn’t want to be him, all I have to do is continue my existence then everyone owes me, a manifesto spray painted on a parking stall, when I take things it for you, its not shoplifting when I do it, a guy who’s explaining to the people who visit the store, he doesn’t have a job, he’s saved all of us, the movie is really fun, less grounded in reality, homeless people talking to themselves, delusional people, are they delusional?, turning the clerk at an unimportant desk, a construction worker, why Arnold Schwarzenegger, quail, shiver and shake, vs. Quaid, more like Quatto, prompts, a bad movie, like Matt Damon but the other guy, The Adjustment Bureau (2011), because a dog falls asleep, reality being constructed, out of joint with reality as it is being constructed, make a black man fall asleep on a park bench, why it doesn’t translate well, boobs, dogs, coffee, wives, how do I know what’s real, all of that except for the dog, inside of his obsessions, limiting, its not everything that’s going on with him, The Goblin Reservation, a little bit into the future, Time Is The Simplest Thing by Clifford D. Simak, Martian Time-Slip, Paul Verhoven, interested in what’s going on in America, Showgirls (1995), RoboCop (1987), disgustingly awesomely correctly cynical, pulls back on that, ultimate power, an assassination, a Black Panther, MLK, memory cap, memory blocker, prevent their agent from knowing he did it, a negotiation with them, isn’t there some other way?, if they kill him the world will end, a solipsistic fantasy, awesomely stupid and funny and pathetic, it’s just him, the wife, the secretary with the blue boobs, offering herself to him, an ulterior motive, she needs to offer himself to him, a wish fulfillment fantasy, hilarious, he believes they’ll fulfill their promises, the nearest barracks, he knows what’s going on but also can’t fully buy into it, nice people, Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Lincoln conspiracy theories, a logical explanation for it, Lincoln’s wife was really into psychics, do not go to the theater, my wife believes in all that, gets assassinated, drinking buddies with John Wilkes Booth, look this up, John Wilkes Booth is Edgar Allan Poe as a time traveler, dies mysteriously, raving about somebody named Reynolds, out there in the universe of broken threads, time travel, dreams in this story, starts with a dream, the dream grew, the dream and the yearning, the enveloping world, are you getting up or not, fierce crossness, okay, Douglas is his go to name, Charles J. Colchester, its times vs. our times, psychology, in a more scientific way, they believed it was more scientific, repressed memories that can’t be suppressed, misused in a different way, what passes as psychology today in the 90s would be dismissed as self-help gimmicks, a scam, infiltrated academia and psychology, Little Miss Sunshine (2006), Alan Arkin is always amazing, by losers for losers, destigmatize, mental health, everybody could potentially have a mental illness, almost everybody is neurodivergent, instead of expanding, limited, self-eating, how educated people thought about it, engaged with psychiatry, mental doctors, getting committed, committed one of his wives, write a story about that, Clans Of The Alphane Moon, it comes in as truth, maneuvers to analyze it, its cute because it wants to kill, accept, ignore, dispute, what techniques you use, how old you are, techniques of training, when Philip K. Dick goes to a doctor, paralyzed by thoughts, needs to engage, shows up in his writing, spiritual enlightenment books, what’s the truth of this?, what’s important, what is reality?, Freud, dogmatically, repression, too much sexual repression bad, run around like savages killing and raping each other, just the right amount of repression, misreading a novel, take the wrong lessons from Nineteen Eighty-Four, this is the only book you need to read, metaphors are fiction, hypothetical examples, speculative theory, not testable, not subject to falsification, what at this story at core really about?, suppressed memory?, the movie Gaslight, gaslighting, I know it by its objects, momentos, Paycheck (1944), The Man In The High Castle, a short story about a snowglobe, a souvenir, in contemplating, martian maw worms, unicellular organism, a sneaky pete pistol, a life rod, a death rod, a tangible connection to a vague memory, how do we know these memories are real, go to Europe, how should I go, a time of film, film was expensive, just myself, a stone from a gravel path in the garden behind Versailles, how do I know, oh yeah, there was that thing that happened, a perfect memory to connect all of our experiences together, whats the difference between suppressed and repressed, the name of the shop is Rekall, a much better story, the movie is much better, engages an idea better, Hauser vs. Quaid, good guy vs. bad guy, Hauser is fucking Melina over, Quaid loves Melina, very masturbatory, how could I have that without doing any work?, the reason why is buried, before he was assigned there, he didn’t want to go to Mars, an assignment, it happened to be Mars, a different layer of consciousness, this person is scared of snakes, a trauma involving snakes, a man flashed her his penis when she was five, suppressed in her unconscious, buried in memory, why did he spend all that time digging around in the Martian memory, the story of Paycheck, the reason he collected these objects, Severance, a very long two seasons, the park bench stuff is slow and boring, what’s the wife’s job in this story, much improved in the movie, an agent?, is she here to watch me, he thinks about it, he thinks a lot, two major boobs scenes, 3 or 4 people, Doctor Lull, Doctor Low, the technicians, refunds, retail, vbery business oriented, the Company, the CIA, InterPlan, they take him back to the retail store, his brain changed not wholesale, why is it called that?, Beyond The Door, over breakfast, a cuckoo clock, I got it wholesale from a friend, women want you to spend money on them, show you’re going to stick around, defeats the purpose of buying an expensive gift, in their own facilities, such a piddly little retail guy he can’t imagine how the CIA actually works, show up at our barracks, the secret police, so piddly and silly, the doctor, I’ll give you half back, motivation, to make money, the stupidest thing, getting the ideas and following through, if he wasn’t so greedy, little note, he’s really a spy, these guys are gonna whack us, give him evidence, silly, Philip K. Dick is naive about the things he knows are really going on, distracted by boobs and a mean wife, pretty damn good, a problem with a Hal Clement, a tweet, June 6th, qoute tweeting Ultra Blast, what about the guy you lobotomized, how human nature really works, schedule a short story, sell it to you retail, what’s going on this claim I’m making, in the movie, Hauser’s using Melina, to assassinate Quato, very Verhoven, Cronenberg was set to direct it, steered away from that, amazingly tight, the trip to Mars, schizoid embolism, just acting out of self-interest and aesthetic appeal, Hauser is a cynical operator, the naivete of his future self to fuck somebody over, why is this human nature, a turtle , you aren’t helping, you aren’t helping, you already know who you are and that person doesn’t help, you see a drowning squirrel or a puppy, untie his legs, take the cat out of the bag, on your way home you see your future self, that’s for that squirrel!, my nut factory anymore, things need to be done, we can’t sit by and just allow things to happen, lunch break, a kid in an empty classroom, building a house of cards, breathing over it, you feel good and bad, tgapping on the table, we have to know that these things are within us, tie up the princess of the train tracks, the guy who tied, Smedley Badwright, human nature is such that we must act, take a model of who we are, I’m not going to do that again,the tattoos, wwjd, model themselves on somebody, what wouldf spiderman do in this situation, that’s what this is about, one must act, you cant live in that horrible office job, a vacation as a solution to problems, two weeks of Saturdays, back to the old grindstone, hat e their job, whatever it is on twitter, self-trolling, insightful into human nature, such a stupid story, non-cynical about political assassination plans, human nature is as human nature does, a bully in a group, that’s cool, that’s not cool, the people are very similar, boys must act, with Quail, wants to be an agent, becomes Lee Harvey Oswald, erase your memory, that doesn’t make 100% sense, plant the wife, this story isn’t quite that far, an office job that doesn’t matter, he was used by the company, with the destroying rod, the tangible objects you find in the drawer, a weird language with a starmap on it, where did that come from?, a destroying rod vs. a healing rod, we have the capability of throwing squirrels and drowning squirrels, didn’t feel guilty about killing the guy, out of patriotic duty, the right thing to do, memory of going to mars and being a spy, does it, old memory back, to the surface, erase his memory again, nice people, like mice, motivated him to become a spy in the first place, a more important story than he does it, pathetic, if we knew that that was your fantasy, maybe it wasn’t a fantasy, why does Arnold Schwarzenegger want to go to Mars, Sharon Stone says let’s go to Saturn, I like sex, settle for this fake memory, optional extras, filling out the survey, what’s the same about you, famous jock, tycoon, he could be a spy, like Lee Harvey Oswald, a lackey and a patsy, these tangible objects, that trip to the beach, why is my wife mean to me, how did I end up married to this person, extraordinarily strange, definitely an outlier, the articulation that’s strange, a late 90s internet guy, hacker zines in the 90s, radical ideas, normal office drones, fantasizing about spies and shit like that, Paul really liked it, it would be okay if I was like a secret cop, they didn’t know, what if I had this alternative, what if I manifest it, bored out of fuckin mind, maybe then, an insight that Philip K. Dick had, wish fulfillment, about wishfulfillment, the wish gets subverted, turns into a nightmare, its horrible, as a subculture, science fiction wasn’t necessarily self-aware about this, the dark underbelly of America in someway, the mainstream culture couldn’t accept, a generative contradiction, Philip K. Dick normal guy ethos, fantasies of being a spy, its weird to have the rug pulled out from underthing, always overquestioning, what science fiction was aware of, processed recently, 1946, Margaret St. Clair, Fantastic Adventures, Introducing The Author, a little bit of the thing you were saying, caught more or less by surprise, a photograph and an autobiography of herself, curly brow covered hair, bangs to cover forehead, [Bettie Page] mod?, usual editorial deadline, about women liking to talk about themselves, 9 or 10 years of age, My Terminal Moraine by Frank R. Stockton, Jules Verne, Hugo Gernsback publication Electrical Something, fair, a story about people, detective and mystery, quality magazines, the same kick, freedom of imagination, ordinary people of the future, present day motorists, essentially true, got married, pet hobbies, carnations, raising dachshund puppies, out here in Richmond (California), terrestrial paradise, no special ambitions, the pulps at their best touch a genuine folk tradition, a balladic quality, The New Yorker, science fantasy fiction, ballad-like, new fairy tales, this story we read today, a fairy tale is a fake folk tale, Hans Christian Anderson, Christian, Aesop’s fables, the Bros. Grimm, Cinderella, a complete Grimm, this is from this region, Bluebeard is Charles Perrault, The Castle Of Murder, before the show started, stories that need responses, stories in dialogue, Isaac Asimov’s robot stories, a collection of folk tales about robots, made by an individual, fingerprints, produced, Snow White, a new narrative, Walt Disney’s fingerprints, R.U.R., a story based on that idea, a collective knowledge about what things are about, Lin Coln, Star Trek episodes, he freed the robots, what is it that fairy tales do, wish fulfillment, folk tales are more functional, if Jonathan had written this story, a warehouse or something, it wouldn’t have the nagging complaining wife, that’s not your kink, boobs changing colours, lights inside of them, based on her mood, purplish/pink, jealous green, bad at his job, he’s the only one doing it, his badjobbedness, in the end, really good, doing it before everybody else, everybody knows Philip K. Dick’s stuff now, all the Verhoven stuff, she’s naked in the story, nail colour on her nails, the non-nakedness, a three boobed lady, Sharon Stone skin, kicking in the balls twice, grabbed in the crotch, swearing, blood packets, primal screaming by Michael Ironside, mutants, prosthetic arms, an infiltrator, even tho a mutant himself, happens everyday, that guy there wearing black from head to foot, that guy there was the fed, shaman hat, freedom!, the naive guy, an insurrectionist, I can’t image the government would ever do something like that, diminished faculties, sucking on the propaganda tit all day, children torn apart by bombs, have your memory changed, not be aware, why Philip K. Dick is so relevant, we don’t got to Rekall to get things done, NPR, those Houthis are bad, do you condemn Hamas?, Jesse you’re weird, just tune it out, he’s calling it out, very good very solid, a technical difference, psychiatrist is a doctor with patients, a psychologist who does therapy, the same trade, a license to prescribe, a university funded by DARPA, rich people love psychologists, talk about themselves all day, explore themselves, instead of having to read, schizophrenic, bourgeois, love the psychologist, this talking doctor, explore himself and his own memories, explain his behavior, the spiritual route, he wasn’t accepting the things he was being told, he’s fighting with his wife, is that really true, is she a hebephrenic?, guiding your thoughts, if he just told you you wouldn’t believe it, no longer done by psychologist, therapists, licensed professional counselors, the worried well, extensive experience, a candy dispenser for medicine, give you anything, a psychiatric nurse, gives a shit, even as this industry expands, the demand, people bad at it, degree mills, an interesting field, another word for horrifying, a vital field, physician is the body doctor, psychiatrist is the brain doctor, Scientology, he was reading a lot, his letters, passing comedic references, Dianetics fully discredited in the science fiction community, in Galaxy, Planet Stories, making fun of it, Writers Of The Future, Galaxy Press is Scientology, bigger, still exists, nothing dies, if you won that thing, blacklisted, the Tor people are the hip group, Reactor Mag, Tor.com, changed its name, the mainstream, any kind of audience, an audience of themselves, Lightspeed, a proofreader, does that for free (of course), Analog in the 1980s, write for Analog, submit your story now, read the magazine to learn what kind of stories we publish, not a pyramid, a lifestyle, something I’ve always wanted to be, I would like to have written, in this story his fantasy is about having done, not doing, what made Philip K. Dick a great writer, go out to his shack and write up a story, do it again and do it a gain, read these artifacts, no where near the top, a Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report, the only thing that’s good about is the idea, a car drives up the side of a building, a robot taxi driver, a guy who says weird things, that person isn’t just an object, imagine he was a subject, star rating, nice things about your clothes, Jesse has never been in an uber, the Church of our Mother, interaction mediated through a cream sweeping machine, a very expensive car, driving a Mercedes, uber guy, delivers pizza, this is how we are now, that’s really sad, nice old Philip K. Dick times, what if we had robot drivers, single taxi drivers making a living, Married With Children, shoe salesman hates his life, two kids, he’s a loser because he’s a shoe salesman, we can’t imagine anybody having their own house and being a shoe salesman now, streaming from their bedroom in their mom’s house, that’s how things are now, driving an amazon truck, what Philip K. Dick imagined, the robot is the box, a robot manager, why did you make such a sharp left turn, his doors that won’t open until you pay them, oppressive and horrific, moving to quickly, postal worker, one’s employed by the government, move like robots, when break time comes, favourite interaction, everyone around here has worked at Amazon, a big warehouse in Lexington, always cry before my shift, it was so boring, this is what our expectations are, author copies, printed in Delaware, Ingram books vs. Amazon books, running out of ink, save money, why aren’t we buying up old printing presses and putting them in our basements, why we’re not doing it, cheaper through amazon, they can be relatively small, the way Benjamin Franklin did it, against the enterprise, Amazon owns everything, Lightning Source, Ingram Spark, everyplace that’s not Amazon, the Ingram family, every commercially published group, a monopoly on printing presses, distribution, conflating the two, you have to play the game to get books in hands or podcasts in earbuds, the middle man, the bookstores are gone, a Chapters in Coquitlam, candles and LEGO, Walton’s, Waterstones?, back into books, many independent bookstores, go to Oregon to find one, we have to travel so far, nail salon, skin salon, dog food store, catalogues, Sears Catalogue, big retail, the internet came, big box retail stores, better than the internet, leaving your house and going out, too soon to tell, Apple’s not giving up on their headset thing, bearish vs. bullish, bearish on VR stuff, for thinking about VR, or AI,companies are already starting to cutback, expensive and inexpensive, augmented reality, students like chatgpt, the people who grade the homework, anti-ai homework service, how do they monitize chatgpt, Scott’s paying for it, if school wasn’t mandatory, when you do crypto, burned an acre of rainforest, big computers, bitcoin, disruptive to the fiat currency systems, isn’t a result of the fake school system doing fake homework, from the fake ai money, the requirement to do or pretend to do, the horror that is school, getting hooked, solving a problem, people’s actual history with school rather than theoreticals, individual teachers, cram, take in then regurgitate, so weird, learned all on my own, we all know this true, busy work, Wordle, the word manga was the five letter word, such a funny story, has to be true, all outraged, such a boomer story, why does it exist, they need to fill time, garden a little bit, people like word games, keep your brain sharp, sudoku, relationship with crossword puzzles, but why?, don’t they have something better to do?, horrified, so unproductive, jigsaw puzzles, pretend to do something else, increases spatial awareness, listerine, advertizing back in the pulp magazines, rupture-easers, never been debunked and never will be, germs, lemon squeezy stuff at the door during COVID, throwing their money away, wrecking the environment, Jesse’s totally wrong about those, second most liberal school, cooked food is bad, stop washing my hair, stop using toilet paper, leaves, pages from books, water, there’s a whole alternative ecosystem, causes damage to your anus, bidets, reinforce, we need bidets, they smelled like shit, don’t wipe for a week, Jesse doesn’t smell like anything, three times a day, days without showering, stopped noticing their own bad scent, small classroom, coffee can do that, cigarettes, cigar people, if Will was stinky Jesse would tell him, in great danger of stinking, curbside pickup, drive thru, could be a danger sign, the bidet will help, occasional daily shower, middle ground on this body product issue, stay off the deodorant, worried about it, stinky notifications, if you get all sweaty have a shower, homeless person, memberships to gyms, change your clothes, stinky feet, stinky anything, not being on the body product chemical stuff, very sensitive nose, vacation to Egypt, far afield, the discussion that we’ve had today, not compelling, males must act, for all mankind, not a compelling theory, they need to do something, what’s the alternative to doing something, being passive, play PUBG, interaction with gamer, against their own interest, a discipline thing too, do you not remember when you’re building a house of cards what happens?, which is easier to do build or destroy, patience and skill, as a child which is easier, gain some skills, you can build, some patience, more satisfying, they’re immature, a pro build person, that’s deranged, liking destroying more than building, creative destruction, Sales Pitch, a commuter going through outerspace, pelted by advertizing for products (including body part replacements), pushy robot, men are looking for relevance, women are looking for security for their offspring, not even human, animal, the biological essence of women, very biologically different, animals don’t think about their gender as much as humans do, psychology or vagina, the psychology, why do people go off to fight in Ukraine when its not their war?, their being is fighting, act as if they should be out in the forest hitting each other with sticks, classroom sort of based stuff, foam sticks, eye protection, how to raise a kid with a knife, not even the same thing as a gun, you’re going threw a piece of broken glass, throwing things in the water is cool, this creature growing inside of me for 9 months, warm and safe when the birth happens, cats or dogs go find a place, motivation vs. psychology, money security, comfort, communal creatures, activities going on in the brain, under the surface, the archaeological record, prehistoric hunter gathers, the men and the women did the same kind of work, pretty up on archaeology, a subscription, middens, big piles of shells, more like regular people, misunderstanding, modern agricultural farming with land rights, less controversial example, human culture, animals are the opposite, that’s not true of all birds, sexual dimophism is a thing, two cockatoos look identical, let’s say he’s only talking about the birds, male turkeys, plumage, scrawny very small, male fish, clown colours, little grey things swimming around, women dressing up, in past human cultures, African American culture in the United States, purple zoot suit, a horse race, little pastel shirts, the Kentucky Derby, what the word dude means, these things are cultural, make money and look professional, he gets the Mercedes, jewelry, watches, anklets, make up and powdered wigs, cultural expectations of men and women, the man asks the woman out on a date, with the younger people, situationship, come up to each other and say “skibidi toilet”, in the 2000s, offline website, Will sent the first message, its not really about clothes, Jesse has this thesis that women’s primal drive is to seek safety and protection, motivated by different things, people have all sorts of narratives, they want to be near the money, basic psychology, enjoy writing like to tell stories, he wants to have sex with a woman, become a famous writer, who are we talking about here?, broken is such a way, make art, it would be good to have that art appreciated, Freud’s theory of sublimation, that energy that’s suppressed needs some place to go, divert that energy, largely done by males, triggered by Jesse, disagreeing, is your disagreement substantive, all the cave art, what is it about, different modes, blows paint over their hand on the wall, we are here, an accounting system, stories on the walls, a lot of animals, game animals, herd animals, herds exist in nature, some prehistoric people, goatherds and shepherds and cattle, natives of the plains, buffalo is a good example, elk or whatever, reindeer, a domestic animal for pulling sleighs and such, a wild animal, semi-domesticated animal, why do they obsessively paint these animals, this is like their religious association with the act of killing, to eat its flesh, take its hide, take its bones, they know that killing is wrong, insects, fish, furry creatures and birds, that’s what we are, we’re cooking flesh creatures, who’s making that art, it’s men, didn’t have stories yet, unlikely, didn’t have language yet, pictograms all over BC, the ones in France, before they were talking, how do you prove this, communicate that to organize into a hunt, bees do the same thing, I just found these flowers, pretty simple, how long does it take to develop language, communication, very few animals have grammar, chimpanzees are living in the stone age, bears in the pre-fire age, looking at peoples bodies stress injuries, a recent Predator movie called Prey, hyper-realistic, the vast majority of human behavior is throwing sharp sticks at food, rock attached to a stick, male work, more upper body strength, at what point are humans humans, are neanderthal humans, which one can rip Jesse’s arm off faster, harem of females, bonobo, female is the dominant one, we’re definitely on the spectrum, massive sexual dimorphism, some tiktok lady, bow-strength, butch ladies, there’s some femme guys, pretty normal, not 50 50, since the early 2010s, the ideal body type for women is athletic, 1920s, women were waifs, big shoulders, Dolly Parton, Kate Moss, Claudia Schiffer, Baywatch, fat women, big butts, hoops in the back, from decade to decade, fashion, my woman is well fed, you’re putting that hoop skirt on her, that archetype, she runs track, karate and jujitsu, female wrestling team at a highschool?, bjj, roles for men, we’re men looking at women, Schwarzenegger and Stallone, Lady Gaga is a throwback to Madonna, chips and videogames, girl gamers, very successful career woman, boyfriend or husband is just like a loser, trailing behind her head hung low, sidegig, uber on the weekends, a reversal [see also the 1894 story THE REVOLT OF… by Robert Barr], economic issues with marriage, breast milk, weird hormones for strange reasons, breast pump, back into the meeting, a ton of hours, the cooking, no hunting going on, any fishing?, did he take your sister fishing?, girls should be allowed to play on boys baseball teams, more motivated, his sister, a fairly good baseball player, Will’s back, that’s like a thing, neighbours who live down the street, a pretty good job in IT, a parent they have to take care of, Meg is pulling down more money, not pumping out kids, Jesse’s pretty strange, a few steps ahead, what happened, to reading Day Million in the 80s, Larry Niven in the 80s, Jonathan has one child, a 10 year old, tend to not to vs. can’t, the history of hospitals vs. doctors vs. nurses, Florence Nightingale, doctors are ancient, Galen, hospitals are from the middle agents, christian brothers, more people visiting the Holy Land, bind each other to a covenant, a safe route for travelers, knights hospitalers, knights templars, hospitality, a modern mecca pilgrimage, filled with patients, doctors come into the hospitals and see to the patients, war hospitals, women want to contribute, swapping out bandages, giving them food and drinks, all those separate jobs are created the behavior of the genders, fraternal orders, they like fighting, shoot crossbow bolts, everything related to violence, theyre the orcs, the consequence of what they’re doing, our vision of Rambo, a useful idiot, pulled back in for the sequels, built into the human boy, not built into the human girl, girls going into the , a Lysenkoist, Jesse loves Stalin, Jesse doesn’t love Stalin, epigenetics, how you get your grant, cooperate and help each other, he got his grant year after year, its embarrassing, why less destiny than genes are, The Not-World, talkin with Cora, a fake Nancy Drew, sounds like girl stuff, she’s so fuckin weird, girls are interested in investigation, and getting tied up, investigating with flashlights, makes sandwiches, figures out a fact, swaps jeans with her best friend who’s probably not a lesbian, Time Is The Simplest Thing, will was on vacation, our friend Scott Miller, a parasocial relationship, franticly dmd, the Ray Bradbury agent estate, either bullshitting or wrong, three strikes then his account is deleted, if they don’t rescind their takedown notice, he’d have to sue them, The Visitor by Ray Bradbury, here’s the source, either their records are fucked up or…, he had to pull something down, more from his podcast?, that’s a bad sign, one somebody’s radar, Don Congdon & Associates, long deceased, Wall Street Plaza address, the take down notice, possible being trolled by another youtuber?, the official website?, their DMCA notices, this is why, if you can’t win don’t play, a rigged game, too much, it is rigged, lots of reasons to not have children, when Will was one, babies are boring, peekaboo is pretty limiting, can’t bounce them too hard, get sad, can’t explain why, crying kids explaining what the problem, temper tantrums, what it was v.s what I thought it was, incoherent, seems like it is pain, some of it is permormative, pretending to do them, podcasting or walking, Land Of Our Fathers, Paul Robeson, travelling around Wales, toy laptops, toy kitchens, fake oven, tiny, my little bakelite, easybake oven, a boy equivalent, easy bake machine shop, easy grill, easy lathe, easy gunsmithery, metal molds, put goop in them, creepy crawlers, bug toys, probably toxic as hell, still not very good at cooking, make your own food, cheaper, better for you, can be a serious problem, here we are childless with all these cats, Mars Express (2023), at the spaceport, a robot that looks like Astroboy, looks like their grandchild, nuzzles the robot’s head, full of that, at every turn, teaching you the plot like a really good mystery movie, the name of the people who made it, French people who like, know and do, the Astronaut’s daughter is really important, I am going to stand in for my sister, must have a dressing contest, it gives away its ideas, too much of it, the dress up contest, first romance with the Mormon lady, Twilight, not good for Jesse, the Olympic Peninsula, rainforest, Indians, girl gas to choose between werewolf and vampire, sparkly qualities, hot native, very loyal, of course she chooses the white man, just so hard to choose, Betty and Veronica , Rebecca Black’s Friday, what will I do?, a mean reading of women’s psychology, look at the options available then choose the best one, uncharitable, vs. men choosing women, a line about beautiful vs. hot, hot is about how one is dressed or undressed, the signals of hotness, hair in a bun, glasses on, pantsuit, not putting out the hot signals, all women have the potential of being hot, distracted by hotness, this other thing, kindness, amiability and kindness, what do you think?, eventually got together, pre-Meg people, propinquity, accessibility, big factor, Pinky, little Chinese girl from next door, the cookie store in Chinatown, how different human beings can be from each other, one of those people, two definitely, only in touch with one, fucked up and broken (but still look pretty), didn’t jive well, fucked up girlfriend, sex addled, similar personalities, similar sense of humour, big schemers, convince other people to do things, you should join this church, an elaborate party in order to get Will a scanner, scanners live with meaning, watching PulpCovers put out weird menace story art, get somebody to read for me, a podcast to edit up, a student, oh coffee, dad and mom and brother for father’s day, an afterthought, Children’s Day, you honour your mother, you don’t have to do homework today, seems dangerous, one day a year where they don’t have to study, all poor kids, out-competing their non-hagwan forced bretheren, univerities jobs, diplomas, it is a scam, the Jesse lesson: can’t win don’t play, forget about the suicides over there, what jobs exist, not at Walmart (for the old and disabled), young and abled work at Amazon, all other jobs are for Koreans, China’s the place to be for an upwardly mobile job, what you actually do in them, what the culture is like, elaborate paperwork all day, grade the kids, needs more of this, fun and funny, off to Korea, throws in something about capitalism every story, The Society, flame, peach and hen, can’t see the end in sight, many other hens, everyone were crazy about peaches, even the hens were framed harmed and killed each other for peaches, in style without curiosity, once foxes blocked the road, they usurped peaches, disturbed other hens lives, masks to hid their expressions, gave up, made a little flame, it began to swallow the foxes, fell into a swamp, the foxes were eaten by the flame, she was tired and the end of the road had come, she could saw a bed at the end of the road, with this the hen’s long journey, doesn’t it see similar to something? right?, it’s society, here is a translate, the road, corrupt politicians, the swamp, pretense, the bed death, awesome, to delight Jesse, he delighted me, so delightful, do it for free, to explain what a sleeve is, how that would come about, my teacher touched my arm, done it with drawings before, more concrete, sniffing and acting and banging the table, the word bruise, ouch it is a bruise, whatever, its tough out there, the good ones make it really good, six great ones, four or five somewhere in the middle, minimum wage approaching Jesse’s wage, a number of coequal workers, asking politely vs. an ability to walk away, other methods, hitman?, tutor privately.

World's Best Science Fiction 1967 - We Can Remember It For You Wholesale - illustration by Jack Gaughan

We Can Remember It For You Wholesale - Editorial introduction from F & SF

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #459 – A Little Variety by Richard Hardwick

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #459

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss A Little Variety by Richard Hardwick

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

A Little Variety was first published in Manhunt, December 1958.

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The SFFaudio Podcast #811 – READALONG: Exiles To Glory by Jerry Pournelle

Jesse, Evan Lampe, Will Emmons, Alex (PulpCovers), and Jonathan Weichsel talk about Exiles To Glory by Jerry Pournelle

Talked about on today’s show:
serialized in 2 issues of Galaxy, September and October 1977, a paperback, Jerry Pournelle by himself, YA in the style of Heinlein, here we are, is it true?, Heinlein style YA?, demented reactionary Nazi guy, garbage, fun to analyze, worth the bother, upset Goldwater was defeated by Johnson?, the worldview is demented, just disorder, a fundamentally reactionary worldview, all controlling government is terrible, actually create something, not be weighed down by the systems of the earth, the civil rights bill, hated every minute of this book, makes the same mistake, takes some Heinlein tropes, a crazy person, flights of fantasy, not enough incest, Starman Jones, a similar story, more synthetic, near the beginning, silly annoying things, the infodump, these rich people who own corporations, dumped with, why, why do I care?, a good chunk of notes, three main characters, significant characters, Kevin Senecal, ask me about my name, Jacob, diabetic computer guy, Ellen McMillian aka Glenda, the good which, Larry Niven, because the inherited wealth, the dedicee of this book, Dan Alderson, was diabetic, the roman-a-clef to understanding this book, a theory, cynical, pretty obvious, the Norman French origins, a steward, runs a household, a granger, chief of staff, John Wyndham, the children with the weird eyes, The Dunwich Cuckoos, the guy who goes around to all the local plebs and demands rent for the lord, all names can have meaning, didn’t pick this name randomly, heroes, they’re trynna save the company, by saving the company they’re saving earth, a comedy, they get married at the end, shouldn’t feel this cynical, very Shakespearean, Much Ado About Nothing, sparking on twitter in dangerous ways, saved it for the podcast, there’s something here, disappointed and annoyed, writing partner, question their continued relevance, dangerous, lock you up on a moon, a stack of Heinlein juveniles, science fiction in the Gernsback Asimov tradition, his focus, the rocket Galahad, effort into that, doing a lot of math, math about something that’s made up, an eidetic memory, by being rich, raised in a weird cult, Futurians, the ideological framework, a very timely book for the late-70s, stagflation, capitalism in crisis, an issue with hard SF in general, all this thought into how the tech works, a technophile, everyone is against technology, social structures, how government works, how political movements work, delusional, the rise of other economies in the world, seemingly endless growth was coming to an end, more of what Johnson had in mind, tried that in France, a welfare state forever, Marxism 101, far left vs. right, the modern administrative state, autonomy from capital, from the great Depression forward, a reactionary like Pournelle, opposed to capital in a fundamental way, more power than capital, governments are more short sighted than business, elections vs. shareholder returns, investment vehicles, privately held companies, the audiobook business, an audiobook producer, the only exception is Amazon, a monopoly in multiple, an acquisition company, Blackstone Audio, weather the storms of management school ideology, some family, learn the business, doesn’t always work, some heir fuck it up, what this book is about, a book about politics, useless and helpless, the STATE, they’re nothing, the actual enemies are other corporations, she’s a spy, corporate cops, kind of interesting, the cop who wants to have a beer, steals a beer, a person stuck in a horrible institution can do, too many other things on their mind, a broken system, the good ones leave, can’t just muddle through and take the orders, leave the earth to solve the problem, the solution to problems is running away, hints early one, some sort of secret society, did the cop nail the cat to the door?, what’s going on here, the Futurians were set up, global conspiracy, a weird book club, the early Earth stuff, The Rolling Stones, Grandma Hazel with the kids on a scooter, that anoxia thing, clay under her boobs, never pays off, Quixote, straight out of, The Turner Diaries [by William Luther Pierce], is there any evidence for that?, have you ever said anything about Africans, lifted off of that book, what’s it doing there?, the kick off the earth, motivated to leave the Earth, buckle down and get a job, a lot of people’s goal, your life sucks, had the sense to make the character a female, a healthy young man, a nerd who played football, trash can lid, loving the Society For Creative Anachronism, pandering to nerdism, a serious problem with the politics early on, 2020, beat up by gangs in the 1970s, The Warriors (1979), Escape From New York (1981), Death Wish (1974), desperate gang violence, Crips, muggings, Monica Hughes, the company is the bad guy, the people who work at the company are all bad, double agents and spies, that one company is good, he can’t get in the guild, do you have any pull with one of the unions, protesting groups, the cynicism about academia, fairly forward thinking, a lot of people a lot less enchanted with the university systems, there’s a column in Galaxy, giving his speeches, excited about his ideas, we don’t have to have zero population growth, where in here is it really really right wing, helpless in the face of black masses, police not enforcing laws, massive rioting, Black Lives Matter, not enforcing the drug laws, doing heroin in the streets, academia being unable, you’re never going to get out of this university, never separately, before he died, interested in tech, growing up during WWII, Italian POWs, not exactly a contemporary of Heinlein, the next generation, he’s on to something in here, how is Earth going to be better off, a competent manager, engineer their way, cheap energy, cheap food, the plot of the Fallout tv show, fetch quest fun twists, factions and themes and big surprises, cold fusion, help everybody, a comedy cynicism, you’re the naive one going into the world, giant eyes, artificially increased in size, the fun juxtaposition, super-mutants, coming out of Plato’s cave, puritan ethic, underdeveloped cult, parents are rich, a junior associate of the cult, part of her secret identity, her regular identity, loose threads, some other books, easter eggs or callbacks or fanservice, first and last Jerry Pournelle, not a terrible book, disappointing, the solution to one’s problems is to marry a rich girl, Horatio Alger, getting Bs in his courses, the prerequisites, when they tried to grade you, previously had gotten As, not politically conforming, walking around campus, the first one to stop applauding when Stalin gives a speech, zero-growth, pro-tech, variant, doesn’t matter which one you join, one of the officially approved protest groups, feels extremely 2020s, every time a new party won the White House, become entrenched, the Deep State, anti-Trump, didn’t make a lasting impact, back story in this, what was happening before our story began, too late in the book, hidden from us, there was the Watergate, a new third party, People’s Alliance, populist, one would hope, we’ve given up on Earth, we haven’t given up on humanity, princess of mars, brain implant, her story is much more central to this book, he’s the POV character, she has Daddy’s money is going to fuck me up, gravity is hard, stupid gravity, told from the male pov, Heinlein YA, you’re a boy who’s writing the book, general audience for this kind of book, not that many female engineers as a percentage, they buy her being a prostitute, rich girl who rebelled against her richness, the prodigal daughter, well done, what we expect, more mining, getting the load home, the criminal CEO type was doing most of the mining, Starship Troopers except mining instead of the military, Asimov not Heinlein, regular girl, believable or not?, from moment to moment, interesting character beats, I’m into you, let’s shack up, the near future, still normal for people in their early 20s to get married, a very wealthy woman, addresses that, things going on on Earth, Invitation To The Game, kids can’t find jobs, free housing but not jobs, improve themselves as a group, a VR, playing colonists on another planet, they are actually colonists on another planet, like Ender’s Game but with farming, Tunnel In The Sky, the people on Earth are fucked, steal back the unobtanium, make earth a garden, what is the ideology here really, cultivate your own garden, good and honest, find the lost boy in the woods, find a new home, good at heart, do your own thing, chaotic and disordered, how reactionaries see the world, only force can restore order, no institutions, the Mexican government is more competent, Baja, California, The Children Of Men, V For Vendetta, we’re holding firm, the whites in the south who oppose civil rights, if we move against segregation, to keep the fundamentally unstable force at bay, white civilization is under threat, reformed by liberal governments, fundamentally incapable, welfare to education, worsening the problem, only the market or a strong force, reactionary views, there’s too much strong man that’s trying to tame the world, crack down on the gangs, it’s Oregon, everybody’s in their clique, what recent happened, the drone strikes, Nancy’s Pelosi’s friends [worked for that group], killing 100,000 children is fine, I live in a gated community, amongst my peers and friends, I’m getting phone calls about my friend’s children being killed, if you’re in a union, you don’t want to fall, the judges, these guys have rights, fallen, a strata between, the haves and the not, the gangs tend to be strawmanned, what do gangs really want?, autonomy, unity, a means of a survival, official sanction, selling himself into indentured servitude, he meet cutes with, Gaza, the settler colonial project, informed by this very argument, the Algonquins, a chaos we need to bring order to, being driven out, Hungarians and Germans and Ukrainians, the French, the Irish, convinced to go to settler colonialism, you don’t have emigration, Americans being driven out, why did you make that choice?, professional, an American historian of Atlantic history in the Pacific, they’re looking for jobs, there’s no tenure track anymore, people are feeling this pinch, made examples of, the same university for 25 years and had perfect scores, declining rates of profits in the housing industry, capitalism doing that, disorder in the world, emigrating from the United States, keeping from leaving the U.S., tax season, retirees, under the cut-off, how international this book was for an American book, a very American writers, most SF writers who exist, does Sci-Fi still get written?, Ted Chiang, written vs. read, looks like it would be science fiction but is is not, science fiction in awards won, once we’re in space, the Mexican detour, Heinlein has stories set in Canada, very unusually, if it is written by an American, the Earth, Africa, mining companies, a lot of Switzerland, what African country gets mentioned, Canada is a huge mining, zero, Africa is not a set of countries it is a set of places to be mined, Isaac Asimov’s super quiz, which country controlled Angola, Portugal, Madagascar, Ethiopia, why Africa is uniquely interesting, didn’t really care about settling there, and Kenya, most violent decolonization movement, Rhodesia, Mau Mau rebellion, as a possession vs. its resources and can change the government, border crisis, stop fucking up those countries so hard, let them run their own things for a while, most people don’t know, they live in shithole countries, the reason those countries are shithole countries, the recent history of Ecuador, don’t get couped every couple of weeks, the claws and the snakes, where is the right wing part of this, white kid attacked by a black gang, you’ll be the one in trouble, the text is more focused on they’re kids, they’re minors, imperiled children, young people as a threat, strong families and strong parents?, the racial quotas, pretty explicit, a lot of class stuff just below the surface, the ending was largely about that, anxiety about diversity, a positive thing in his works, trigger Evan the most, the Malthusianism, population growth has destroyed the earth, need to eat bugs, I need you to eat bugs, my $300 subscription ice cream, your $15,000 refrigerator, a specific Nancy Pelosi meme, one job per household, restrictions, not going to use any resources, managed poorly, sexism thing, girl in space, that’s sexist, it is, fine with it, evolutionary sex roles, damage done to people’s bones, women were definitely put to work, some war not a lot, hunter gatherer society, have we evolved, humans never change, the things that infect their heads, institutional stuff, our capacity to transform nature and ourselves, ecology of nature, change our relations among ourselves, marriage is a totally unnatural thing, a development, many software updates, some occasional firmware updates, squishy/country, evolution happening slowly, domesticated apes, we’ve certainly lost a lot of hair, lobster stuff, Jordan Peterson, we have the enlightenment, not Pournelle, big heavy infodump late, the very end, his punishment is we pay off your debts, he murdered several people, very realistic, if they don’t just kill him, jurisdiction in space, wave a stack of cash, he would get himself killed, with the lawyer, incredibly satisfying, Pacifico, the Disney villain death, what made him bad, hoarding, embezzling, misallocation of resources, spy books since Ian Fleming, a free on Audible, corporate espionage book [Paranoia by Joseph Finder], at a phone company, basically Blackberry, a double agent, all of that being said, when the stakes are two companies against each other, android vs. apple, the tech that soldiers wear on their head, American vs. Chinese, China steals everything, patents, copyright, cheating at a game where there’s no rules, a layer of cope, the 10 commandments of the company, a lame cope, the reason is china is bad is they take our ideas and implement them, getting the unobtanium back, cheap fertilizer, all the babies in Africa and India and Bangladesh, cynical, the remarkable, a sense of humour, Niven’s sense of humour vs. sense of fun, playful, Ringworld, everybody’s motivation is about sex, Louis Wu just gets sex naturally, Speaker, Nessus, with the hindmost, Teela Brown, luckiest girl on the ring, a low stakes book, personal issue, where the cats were getting murdered, drowned in a toilet, nailed to a door, kill his own cat, pictured in the Galaxy illustration, why is that cat doing Jesus, Stephen Fabian, the cat being crucified on the door, drawn a lot of boobs, my audience for Galaxy really needs to see, Will couldn’t abide that, a Heinlein guy with regards to cats, unlike Jesse, more interested in editorial policy, hoping to grok science fiction through editorial policy, the reason H.P. Lovecraft is, editorial policy creates stories, idiosyncratic bird, market this book to specific audience, artists doing their weirdness, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, makes her own magazine, wrote everything in it, The Yellow Wallpaper, mainstream publication, Herland, women were oppressed in the 19th century, women are people too, some sort of allegory, largely autobiographical, the history of medical treatment: horror everywhere, not wrong to be interested, you have to go to that casino, see that Star Wars movie, capitalism, that’s pretty much everybody after a certain point, kill yourself like Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, drunk, why are you kind of a drunk?, everybody gets there eventually, hopefully, editorial policy at Galaxy in the 70s, James Baen, a different era, J.E. Pournelle, back in the day, a broad array of ideological perspectives, Spider Robinson, he’s a hippie man, Joanna Russ, a woman resisting pregnancy in an Adam and Eve scenario, publications existing today, no general audience, fragmented audience, oppositional ideas, being part of the choir, literally Futurians, as being a right winger, this book sucking at the end, the setup is awesome, allergic to the idea that the right wing even exists, thinking about Paul, he thinks right wingers exist and they’re bad, this policy and this policy, endless foreign wars, tribal cleavages, a woman’s right to choose, she does it anyway, does that make him right wing?, advocate for rational self-interest as a motivating principle, if this book were running for election, where you sit in the legislature, vibes, interested in science and no sense of humour, the fuck yeah science tribe, Andrew Yang, superficial, no depth to it, a surface level description, describing the physics, government and interactions between people, mechanical, not really a right wing or a left wing, ideological differences in these systems, a West Wing, deliberately insulting, doesn’t believe in basic human equality, conservative ideas, what do you mean by right wing, a relative thing, explain Jesse then, ideological incoherent, will self-identifies, focused against and focused on, radical centrist, what Alex was, circumspect, challenging political provocations, a political position, the self-immolation dude, did both, it was for Trump, the new TidePod challenge, finding out the hard way, 70s bombings, disaffected teenagers got into school shootings, ideological different, a left leaning populist, the vax stuff, loves Vladimir Putin, the Syria stuff, riding a bear, holding a cat, Jesse’s gullible, what a tankie is, militant opposition to capitalism, Stalinist, many British communists, a general meaning of supporting anti-imperialist, tankie shirt, defenders of anti-American leaders, pro-Russian narratives, Russo-Ukrainian war, soft-peddled, our politics don’t really matter, you run our country, doctor/dentist, everybody in the middle don’t, early on in this book, The Island Worlds by Eric Kotani and John Maddox Roberts, narrator was ok, Wyatt Fenner, squeezes his nose, hard earned money, before Will was born, born in 1986, so new, a flying Porche, a flying car book, asteroid mining, some Conan, alternate history about Carthage beating Rome, not DAW, MP3-CDs, follow up on this, Thor Taggart, a political party to take over Earth, colourful characters, corporate shenanigans, same tradition, Charles Sheffield, Nive and Pournelle should start looking over their shoulders, came out and bought it, somebody has these books, used bookstore, a NEW book, decent covers, actual science fiction books, the last gasp, John Scalzi’s obituary on Jerry Pournelle, he wasn’t Heinlein but he didn’t kill anybody, he borrowed, are liberals left or right wing, that circumspect laugh, generally considered left wing, John Locke: left wing, Hobbes is right wing, nasty brutish and conservative, pre-French revolutionary, old money and new money, The Economist: a left-wing publication, Adam Smith, more libertarian, libertarian as a subset of liberals, free things up to get more new money, if you’rre not pulling for the Holy Roman Empire…, always conservative, skinsuit Roman Empire, the old joke, achieved peak podcasting, The Worlds Of If is back as a skinsuit publication, Neil R. Jones, The Jameson Satellite, this asteroid road, with a flying porche, Australian ebay seller, the Romantic poets, Keats/Shelly, Coleridge: degenerate, agents chasing Coleridge around, Keats is more conservative, pining for a lost golden age, pretty active for a lord, the Spain of the day, was his club foot left?, arts movement, Tolkien very conservative, a revelation about Tolkien, look at the evidence, who are the rich people across the water, proudfoots, all the Hobbits who are rich indicate they used to be robbers, proud of being footpads, a thing he put in, Brandybuck, they’re buckin’ something, Took, it’s right in the name, I’m baggin’ that, “this is y Gandalf knew Bilbo was a natural thief, it’s how his ancestors got rich!”, it’s that amazing?, an excellent undergrad paper, where riches come from, hobbits as Englishmen confirmed, come home an build castles, sit back, and smoke pipes, ideas on abortion, some right wing stuff on the Spanish civil war, against lining nuns up and shooting them, pro-lining nuns up, line the anarchists up, marry the nuns to the anarchist, have a mixer, the liberal solution, there’s no losers under liberalism, educate people into the middle class, robot janitors, big roomba, you’re kids are janitors while they’re studying at interviews, work study program, older adults to tell them what to do, management was staff, liberal institutions, make kids do work, depends on the context, make other kids do work, old money new money, we’ve been making money this old fashioned way, universities are liberal because they maintain the system, meritocratic, people are starting to tip, pre-French revolutionary times, give it a few decades, how many decades can you have of incompetent government, incompetent government doesn’t really effect most people, hungry, deprivation, Lenin wrote that book, What is to Be Done?, when the system is failing, the Chinese Revolution, national unification, peace, haven’t had starvation in 70 years, famine forever, the Soviet famines were a manmade, all the famines are manmade, localized famines caused by droughts, it takes communism, socialism, communism is never achieved, a list of famines under British India, Pulpfest, all of July?, became a lawyer, among the better end of Conan pastiche, non-Robert E. Howard ones, alternating chapters, some ghoul lady with cold flesh, she’s a zombie, sex with a zombie, Conan The Champion?, a guy writing about Heinlein books, cracked the code on incest in Heinlein, there’s no incest at all, one of the pros on this book, conflicted, the problem with this book is Jerry Pournelle is not a crazy person, The Maltese Falcon, Red Harvest, with Conan, very much like hardboiled detective novels, a problem, a solution, Conan doesn’t have an office, one quirk or the other, Sarah Hoyt, a big claim, breasts, yoga, a female lead character, there was nothing else going on, make it stop, Heinlein’s crazy, one’s a legal term, the guy had a stroke or something, his books got weird, they were weird before that, bizarro fiction, childrens going down slides into buckets, idea based vs. gut based, before sputnik and after sputnik, satire, cynical, the Russians getting to space, very selective in your books and timeline, Starman Jones, getting off of Earth, the United States often doesn’t exist, American ideals in space, Canadian so confused, Jesse you’re balding, okay fuck you, more balding than Canadian, is different later on, older and demented, cognitive decline is real but not equally distributed, one Heinlein juvenile left, the most juvenile of all the juveniles [Have Space Suit, Will Travel], Rocket Ship Galileo, too dangerous to kill the Nazis, the stark difference, they’re fuckin Nazis, corporate guys trying to outjigger each other, corporate entities battling each other, Philip K. Dick, an older paternal knowitall, Professor LaPaz?, shepherds the younger man, the revolutionary girl, liberal and conservative at the same time, big claims are being thrown around, American ideals, Tom Swift, get to it spirit, extremely American exceptionalism, a reaction to a series of Young Edison stories, imagine today someone writing a successful series of novels about young Elon Musk fighting crime with inventions in South Africa, Jonathan’s going to get some money, Horatio Alger, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Jack London, does Bellamy have American values, socialism is German man, being obtuse on purpose, subaltern American values, the real america, making America great again, not particularly concerned, if we just wait 15 years of space mining, horrible mines, an environmentalist book, cares about the environment, ignorant fucks, undermining their own goals, nuclear energy bad, nuclear energy dangerous, exploding moons, nuclear positive, managed by corporate interests, those corporate interests are controlling their protesting groups, Bloomberg giving to the Sierra Club, the non-profit industrial complex, willing to do anything for money, you can make it sound good because we’re gonna do good, follow the money, read Pournelle’s dissertation and master-thesis, when did the book split in the magazine, archive.org, what kinda glory do they get?, married glory, a part of Galaxy Jesse is not super-familiar with, Stephen Fabian is a pretty awesome artist, the cover art was on its way out, not a bad book at all, pretty coherent, missing craziness, what’s hard to understand?, Jack Higgins’ Sheba, everything was on the nose, dragged on and on and on, the champagne of beers, miller high life, the serial picks up on page 73, chapter 12, Aeneas Mackenzie’s real luxury, when they get to the belt, right after the exciting cliffhanger, Star Beast, the functionary UN guy, interplanetary diplomacy, goes down a lot smoother, unearned, unprecedented, hearing the professor on a phone call, ooh mystery, the remainder of the book, the bad guys have no problem killing people, strand them on an asteroid in a mine, gestured broadly at, if they’re gonna kill him?, everybody gets forgiven in the end, main character syndrome, if they killed off the main character, our diabetes guy has to sacrifice, this is good art, jumping from capsule to capsule, the image of the cat being killed, in the shownotes, I’ve seen better crucified cat illustrations, inside front cover NUDE, nude Fabians, Kitty Cat Massacre by J. Manfred Weichsel, The Door Into Summer, the labour saving technology, she ages naturally, the grooming book, is grooming left wing or right wing, cryofreeze, a manipulable character, she sticks with it, some deep mind fuck, it fits with the theme of the book, what is time but aging?, a mismatch in the people’s ages, ususally 100 years ago, great grandmother, Timerider, Up The Line by Robert Silverberg, Heinlein’s pervy-self, The Lazarus Long stuff, hanging out with old men who’ve lived a long time, the immortal guy, Highlander: The Greatest Film Ever Made, Taladega Nights, double feature, they get in a fight, power fantasy about sleeping with his own daughters, smart and had issues, ability to produce text, Heinlein is weird, less pejorative, insane is a silly word, Jerry Pournelle is cute more than weird, wargaming, come on, that’s cute, Star Trek was one of the wargames he was playing, he’s a nerd, political opinions, both amused by people being enthusiastically wrong, procure a copy, the audiobook is no longer available, MP3-CDs, under DRM you’re fucked, used bookstore, let’s race, 2009, Baen’s still going, Clyde Caldwell, Boris Vallejo cover, Larry Elmore, can you compare, pretend it was written by Heinlein, worse than Rocket Ship Galileo, in the tradition of, the JPL stuff, the appeal of space, the commonality, an axe to grind, grinding to a point, more like a Tom Swift book in that way, a framework for a young man to have an adventure, Pournelle had a bad time in the 60s, sexual politics?, positive trends of the 60s, movement towards racial equality, social organization among students, students can get condoms, speak their mind, more chaos and disorder, degeneracy, he seems to not be a huge fan, they were fooling around on the ship, just finished embracing, left to the imagination, a lot of complaining about the lack of privacy, “lovers”, a remarkable magazine, hands, how do we prove this?, not a sexually liberated book, a honeymoon there, having sex in the subway, couldn’t bring himself to describe that scene, she’s on the pill, Heinlein couldn’t wait, Tunnel In The Sky they make babies, Time For The Stars, The Puppet Masters, nudism vs. sex, hate psychics, used to communicate between ships, torchships, any transgenderism in it?, talking to his niece, she’s the grown up, planet of the furry collectivist society, she goes native, another interesting contrast, a long clock, we do have microphones in America, not dedicated, Blue Yeti, need to buy wargames, to play on your computer while you’re in space, a trash can lid, really big in the 70s among people who wrote science fiction stories, Avalon Hill, chits, Panzers vs., Battle For North Africa, card games, Magic was so huge, when did Magic start?, the early 90s, what made it so big, as big or bigger than World Of Warcraft, a 20 year old game, reserved, propose a story, don’t have a gender, when Evan gets to I Will Fear No Evil, and interesting idea, long, a good book, Friday is better, man brain, woman hormones, more womany, good theory, hard to test, templar cigar, fine, more focused on the audiobook, not a pipesmoker, pipe curious, big long clay one like Sherlock Holmes or Gandalf, found in a midden, too long to finish, sunroom, sundeck, so you don’t stink up your house, the longer your stem the farther away the stink is, tend to stink, fezs and smoking jackets and cravats are all designed to prevent stinkage, chewing tobacco would be the worst, seems pretty gross, putting teabags in your mouth, chew on that beetlenut, khat, roadside penis enhancer, social traditions, stimulant effects, working class people take it like coffee, splotch on the ground, betel nut, implies that, Jesse is LSD, dreams getting solid, the themes coming right out, increasing your ability to dream properly, makes you not noisy?, high blood pressure, wake up a lot, keeps Will sleeping, one of the things that [Fallout] has, hacking minigame, the sense of humour, the show is funny, the game is funny, the VATS system, why Fallout is so good, it’s a FPS but doesn’t feel like one, stealing, dialogue trees, the storytelling, side quest sort of thing, science fiction, different morality, corporations, a lot of time spent pre-Nuclear War, the bad guy from Justified, comparing the politics from the world of Fallout, the New Red Scare, retro-cars, it’s not really our world, looks nice, almost extraordinary, a lot less shooting than the game is, a sensibility of a sense of humour, a hyper-reality tweeked up, Andor, the least Star Warsy Star Wars, bullion to pay its troops, don’t have direct deposit, goldbugs wrote it, the emperor would have created a fiat money system, why aren’t their mines, a thread about disabled people in dungeons with wheelchairs, a wheelchair accessible dungeon, there’s too much magic, the same healing system, the game mechanics, stimpacks, radaway, a walkthrough but shorter, Bethesda games, Skyrim, same shit, Fallout 76, the settler system, just tedious, extract story, the NCR, the Vegas one is slightly better, the lore is sort of given to you explicitly, Elden Ring, a list of things to do, make lists, hard in a frustrating way, the game teaches you to stop sucking, 1997, cheating, single player storytelling, isometric, Shady Sands is in Fallout 1, set in Los Angeles basically, the NCR, on the border with California, they never steal anything from any of the games, the organizations and history are all the same, a meeting of communists, everybody should pirate this show and watch it, and now it was two, Time Is The Simplest Thing, good things about it, the cover art from Astounding, The Fisherman, the pastoral, rural ruins, rustbelt America, Clifford D. Simak, died in 1988, a lot of 80s and late 70s, America is not what it used to be, academia, jobs, picture of the dudes by the truck, the premise of the book is very good, very Alfredy Bester, pack your pipe, need to read City, insofar, Philip Jose Farmer’s The Lovers, how most people have taken it in, down for more Simak, seems like good guy, the number one thing on the list, John W. Campbell, I don’t know about you, made a lot of people write a lot of bad books, it’s because you’re right wing, choose a team, Horace Gold, Anthony Boucher, fantasy, escapism, editor versus writer, creatures that live in the desert, Mr. Lupescu, the bloody Benders, family of serial killers, Kansas, 1871-72, a story by Margaret St. Clair that follows Kate, commonlaw marriage, the Oregon trail, kill, maybe eat, 11+ victims, They Bite, man-eating somethings, very Anthony Bouchery, The Compleat Werewolf, a mystery guy, issue of Unknown, Jorkens story The Club Secretary by Lord Dunsany, his editorialship at F&SF, a connoisseur who dabbles in the low, too high is too bad, open to the idea, fiction without those things, the friend and adviser to Philip K. Dick, Roog, dog upset, all humans may die, no dog murder, either the garbagemen are aliens or the dog is wrong, the dog does get to a farm tho, the aliens/garbagemen, Philip K. Dick is great, his first sale, an editorial by Boucher, Anthony Boucher, Theodore Cogswell, a real mistake to differentiate between fantasy and science fiction, Unknown and Beyond, wartime paper rationing, not wholly overlapping, the audience for fantasy, talking to Eric [S. Rabkin], mens magazines, women’s magazines, Omni, Chatelaine, really likes science, out of the 40s, get going in the 50s, evolved from Blue Book, a theatre magazine?, high end fiction magazine, When Worlds Collide, Tarzan, a Superman guy, after WWII, leaning into the adventure, well into the 70s, Argosy does a similar path, the height of the mens magazines, 1959, 130 competing titles, beat up by something like private equity, go into the barber shop, women had the hair salon, legacy with us, the dentist, Consumer Reports, thin volumes from 10 years ago, the sweats, on the cover there was a guy covered in weasels and it said ‘I ATE MY SISTER!’ and ‘I WAS FORCE TO MARRY THE CANNIBAL QUEEN OF MADAGASCAR!, who was reading these magazines, boomers coming out of WWII want to read about Otto Skorzeny, reading tiktok?, observing tiktok?, experiencing tiktok?, a Guy De Maupassant story, Cavalcade, a pretty good fit for this magazine, Today’s Woman, choosing to do it, it fit, great art to illustrate it, rather than shaping stories, by changing endings, curation of what’s available to them, a lot of psychic shit, selling it to a guy who thinks telepathy and psi-powers are possibly real, a huge fuckn blindspot, a bug, that magazine survived all the winnowing, you have to subscribe, newsstands, two legacy magazines, F&SF, Asimov’s, that’s pretty fucked up, scrappy startups, Wizards With Guns, 3 guys in their garage, now they have a place to put that stuff, times have changed, Horace Gold, extreme PTSD, what did he see, man?, the trauma, predisposed, unable to leave his apartment, Frederik Pohl came over, overwhelmed, a Mrs. Horace Gold, hit by a taxicab, imagining experiencing the 1950s indoors, the life of Horace Gold, an episode of Deep Space Nine, Mercury publication, Alfred Hitchcock, Ellery Queen, NPC Conan reviewing, The Worm Ouroboros, a crude failure, The Lord Of The Rings, translation of The Garden Of Forking Paths, a pretty dynamic guy, from Pohl, a weatherman, he did see five bombers get shot down, flaming wreckage in the sky, Masters Of The Air, a throwback, old fashioned, Cora got really mad, glorifying the bomber pilots, being machined gunned, I’ll never forgive them for that, a show about bombers, glorifying, no, not condemned in every scene, night bombing, any time you’re dropping bombs on people, a tankie position?, let’s try to avoid airplanes dropping bombs on people, drones killing other drones, going after human beings, main point of drones, it always starts with defense, embrace genocide, that situation in Gaza, really horrifying, follow the right accounts, made of bones, children missing body parts, does the dog do okay in this Roog story, the dogs and cats in Gaza are not doing well, homeless dogs, pets and feeds and cleans their eyes, Sitting with Dogs, people can do good on pretty small levels, how these dogs ended up there, the family had to move, but why did that happen, why couldn’t the dog come with them, couldn’t afford their house, moving out of country, you have to move for your work, not just rich family wanted a dog, bad cirucmstances for the human caretakers, homeless dogs in 3rd world/developing countries, humans doing their best of twitter and youtube, being forced to move, the border problem as being a political football, the place where they are is not conducive to living, natural disasters, Haiti’s problem, no-infrastructure, U.S. history notes, French history notes, the problem of the day, really cut-off Israel, probably can’t anyway, not a good reason to do it, they don’t have to be interested in winning the election, a little bit of interest there, hyper-incompetent, largely losers, a self-own, winning is losing for them, the hidden story inside today’s book, how did it get that way, how come the judges are insular from their communities, surface, girl is rich, boy is convenient narrator, The Soul Of Man Under Socialism [by Oscar Wilde], some coffee soon, a little coffee, Joe Rogan’s 4 hour podcast, conversations are largely dettermined by how long it takes before someone needs to pee, non-profit diversity training, poor boy, poor man, before entering into some conversation with any kind of stakes, physical needs, a checklist of science fiction thinking, when airplanes were invented, out in the lake, drop your paddle, if one of your wings falls off, human psychology needs such things, other things on that list, frameworks for thinking about expression, whether you can beat the shit out of the person you’re having a conversation with, a check to reality, can you have a debate with her, Destiny and Vaush having a debate on the internet, man-cave/gaming rooms, reading wikipedia entries and nitpicking particular words, approximately your peer, elderly frail man in a bed, a girl acting like a man, that’s not cool, guys shouldn’t beat up girls, some codes of behavior, they have not lived in the world long enough, one against many is not cool, two guys beefing it out in the street, take it outside, not make it contagious, thinking through this through, under the surface, moderate your words, handshake, let’s get a beer together sort of talk before or after, you can’t really debate on the internet, model UN, leadership class, violence, why Fidel Castro wore military fatigues, Kim Jong Un, Wretched Of The Earth by Frantz Fanon, overthrowing the French, fond of Krushchev’s pounding his shoe, space rockets, in the editorial right after, Iran bombing military bases in Israel, Iron Dome being ineffective, hypersonic missiles, really fast stuff, falling behind in tech, all corrupt, milking, F-35, Osprey, Boeing, short term profits good, everybody’s in, get on the gravy train, those two things are not compatible, things are incompetent on earth, the whole mining industry, I need to be a miner because that’s where the money is, dwarves love gold, or mithril, The Hobbit, the dwarves in the Hobbit, more focus on dwarves, motivated by dwarf wanting to get their estate back, never read The Hobbit, Justin fucked all Canadians, servers in North Korea, maybe not the best at advertising their services, insufficient Korean, a lot of different opinions, a reenactment on the whole of the war on the peninsula, one tiny UN unit, reacharound in Inchon, right up the the Chinese border, why did all that happen for, why?, still hard to understand, domino theory, we have to stop the bad people from invading a sovereign country, everything they say about them is what they’re doing, how come Isis never attack Israel?, Isis attacked the mall in Moscow, why did Isis do that?, why Isis is attacking the Russians?, I wonder why, could it be because it is funded, even the people who are taking money to oppress their own people are turning on the oppressors, hold out hope, can’t will this war military?, mowing the lawn on a bigger scale, the border shit, convincing countries to take refugees, lots, enmasse after some sort of horrific slaughter, very common, people appear on the borders, criminals, the Chinese are doing it!, much more direct about what they’re doing, what the IMF is offering us, would you like us help us exploit, an incompetent boob appointed by a demented man, children of this class, they’re not geniuses, their parents had their job before them, there is dissatisfaction building, great moments, Barnard College expelled 1% of their student body for protesting, autoworkers in Chattanooga, endorsing Biden, standard union crap, these are our plans, he plans to be a millionaire, a massive strike for the first time in decades, the auto industry, the Teamsters kicked UPS’ butt, top tier contract, $100k, to buy labour peace, an interesting period, he met with Trump or Biden or RFK, Cornell West, Marianne Williamson, the airy fairy stuff was it, that’s the totality, massive ignorance, if magically president, Obama acceded to everything, subsequently Libya was a mistake, imma think about it while I sip my tea at my estate, encapsulates Obama, stop the NBA from going on strike, favour for a friend, these are friends of mine, none of the players are saying, work in a strange job, highly compensated for their height, you’re embarrassing my family members and my friends, not a stack of dead bodies, a particular person in that stack, that’s just claptrap, you’re paid by Russia, she wants the FBI to look into this, literally lost his faculties, same thing happened to Reagan, it wasn’t on full display, we tell you he’s fine, there’s no question, why did Paul quit twitter?, cybertruck having to be recalled, why are you tweeting this, owning Elon Musk, that’s where we are, so partisan, willing to deny, no he isn’t touching his penis to your face, he’s fine, no he’s running things, but Trump, seeing it and failing to accept it, they refuse to see it, they’re the same picture, you hate Trump a lot, objecting to congressional republicans voting against funding the Ukraine war, Putin sympathizers, I’m not a leader of a post-Soviet state, he’s not demented, caught up on this dementia thing, you’re caught up on this guy flopping his penis on your forehead, it doesn’t matter who is the figurehead, how we judge a person, how many people did Anthony Boucher kill, Carter seemed to kill a lot fewer people, Reagan, more in Iraq, Afghanistan, just raw numbers, Obama, Trump, Biden, killed zero people, Lincoln killed more Americans than anybody, and Lakota, Vietnam War, George W. Bush, Trump is objectively better than Biden and Obama (going by the numbers), make a chart, what you’re grouping and counting, let’s get out of Afghanistan, happened under Biden, we got Ukraine on the back burner, the numbers do line up, Carter was the least killy, after WWI, westward expansion, you can get lost in it, this whole East Timor thing, no war declared, better than Johnson or Nixon, a preliminary way, Bush’s gulf war, Clinton, Kosovo, yo, many many times, no fly zones, Trump didn’t star a new war, we never had a boss, a documentary about Jean Chretien, do it without the U.N., limited rubber stamp, the guy you’re differing to, I’ve never been to a Thai restaurant, a mental patient or demented, whispering in his ear, question this relationship, it doesn’t matter, that didn’t happen, you’re a Putin puppet, a Trumper, or MAGA, a problem unlike other problems, deferred to his vice president, answer questions, how far can the farce go?, is there a parody beyond this parody, summoning that parody into existence, this is not the same man, body double, physically degenerated, lost muscle mass, thinner skin, a CGI of him, de-aging the CGI, AI voice, like the Luke Skywalker, they can’t crank down the decoherence, definitely AI, unbelievable silly, AI Biden replacement, still better than Trump, exposed to liberals pretty much constantly, Facebook friends, into Biden, meme about how Biden is a genuinely good man, get banned, pictures of Palestinian children, that’s just deep fake, is Paul wrong, he’s wrong, it’s unpopular, also focus their energies, wasting our resources, in a trap, the Elvis trap, a hate trap, the hate for Musk is to do with Twitter, Musk is very hateable, he thrives on it, Tesla is not a good company, people thought it was, an American car company, a domestic thing at least, all the people in my doctor’s office drive them, hydropower, being locked down, a little less locked down, a youtuber who reviews phones, found the schematics online, semi-open, not horrible on every issue, people get triggered, that was a bad one, that was embarrassing, that was creepy, this is an old person, not in touch with what is happening, still watching CNN, ABC nightly news, he’s not that old, of the same cohort, an enigma, fairly predictable, Alvin Toffler, he’s the futurist, Future Shock, there’s no jobs in the future, where exactly do all the components come from, more of the late 70s, deeply unsympathetic, a visceral reaction, he’s pretty hard line on some things, his hatred for empire only extends in certain directions, obsessed with America, the strain of American ideals that is inline with, border police, harassed at the border, authoritative at, taking shoes off, I’m not going to put up with your bullshit, fuck it, not going to participate, it’s fuckin retarded, I don’t want to be involved in your security theater, concerts, this is what I thought it was, mob violence, being in a group, submitting to a direction, a holy experience sort of thing, I gotta go dance, don’t submit to some sort of collective group mind, a prophetic leader standing at a podium, is being a college protester good for your career, helped Bernie a little bit, Dave Weigel protested for the Iraq War, money in organizing, what does good at your job mean exactly?, Kamala Harris, can’t get the AI to work, imagine Kamala Harris is in charge, if they though he was doing a bad job, perception, waggling his penis, oh I want that, seduce you, sniff you and forget where he is, Caitlin Johnstone, a girl wanting her legs back, Biden would like the taste of child legged flavoured ice cream, grandma was demented, I don’t know who you are but I recognize you, she still enjoyed chocolate, a lot less depressed, this is still happening, there wasn’t enough family to take care, the economy is fucked and people can’t afford to live anywhere, they 1970s government seems ideal, Jerry Ford probably was not that good, the Great Society, clapback, double down of stuff of the 60s, anti-poverty programs, Reagan and the welfare queens, that’s coded, the government was doing more for more people in the 1970s, the high tide of organized labour, they were planning for the metric system, you can’t even get that done, one little thing, all it takes is rolling it out through the public schools, they can’t get anything done, everybody hates daylight savings time, it would take a little bit of political capital expenditure, there’s no interest in that, massive priorities of cash, guiding signs, Canada will not change until the U.S. does, you didn’t pass the checkpoint, the Baltimore bridge, milking the fucking money out, to the Moon in 10 years, Nazi bridge builders, the Soviets did it without as many Nazis, North Korea is interested in building rockets, interested in billing rockets, a little scandal in British Columbia, a trucking company in Merritt, British Columbia, 18 wheeler Tesla truck, logging trucks go up a hill empty and come down full, hybrid, diesel for range, all the easy trees have been cut, a bill written specifically for them, rejected, consulting services, charge 20% of whatever they get, how do you become a lobbyist, throw away your morality and start sucking on that cock that’s lying on your face, 1 to 1 corruption, BC government voted against inquiring into it, some measure of non-corruption, reversed that decision, its buddy buddy, Alberta’s domestic politics, international shit, doubly evil, moderate little tweaks, all very nice, New Democrats runs British Columbia, Social Credit party, they’d run the province from 1950s-1980s, Miss Willis, secretary just assumed, not massive corruption everywhere at all times, suspicion of the collective, you see what happens without hands, can become corrupt in the process, sunlight and whistleblowers, soviet democracy, one long meeting, kinda what we have here, not much threat of violence, gesture more, not super-Italian, bang the table with my shoe, putting all out in the public record, making strong the ability to expose, secret meetings is not healthy, people should be having arguments as to what to do publicly, good feedback from people not in your group, allowing people to tune in if it gets exciting, firey thoughtful people, the Party For Socialism And Liberation, no outward facing disagreements, that’s why nobody cares about them, a thousand, high barrier, a candidate period, easier to get into the Hells Angels, if the party is doing its job, want to overthrow the government, a public domain, as a concerned non-Canadian, this mess that we’re in, Tsleil-Waututh, old pulp magazines, provincial and federal taxes, HST, GST/PST, based on estimations not on receipts, anything that’s not universal is really fucking stupid, tax codes, a graduated income tax, tariffs, fixing old people’s teeth, middle aged people’s teeth, built out, how medicare started, almost semi-innovation, people aren’t that upset about marijuana anymore, Biden’s new promise, you’re student loan money, the way you did before?, this is what he means, accidentally tweeting from Biden’s account, folksy vocab, c’mon man, Corn Pop was a bad dude, 2019, who is Trump’s VP gonna be?, pretend Biden won, Democrats are ruthless not clever, willing kill people, the FBI or the CIA to assassinate Trump, what is he a threat to?, he’s going to ruin the country, he’s got choose somebody, that’s going to be your next president, old enough to die in office, not a drinker, doesn’t smoke, a health freak, enjoys golf, he’s no RFK, offered the vice presidentship, ostensibly a Democrat, it’s tribal, the tribe kicked him out, he could come back, he’s not gonna be the VP, some nobody, Pence was a nobody, president material, Indiana?, Trump might know, Kamala Harris is Biden’s running mate?, Gavin Newsom, by the time this podcast comes out we will know, we don’t know what the next, he’s anti-popular, literally affects their lives in some cases, tuned-out, as they should be, if it isn’t boring it is dangerous, the ship is headed to the waterfall, captain knows what he’s doing, I was captain before, I hate this ship, how do you get off?, Evan are you on the ship?, no good jobs available, they don’t have great jobs anymore, American emigration over time, 29.3 million in 2005, 40 million in 2019, google from prior to it being useless, a lot of internal migration, a lot easier, they speak English, one big free trade zone, 40% of women would like to leave the United States, not organized this way, how about the 21st century, more Americans that are civilians overseas than military, a 2018 estimate, 9.4 million a year emigrate, you can emigrate to Israel without a passport if you are a sex criminal, media mail, a legacy, US copyright law, American government is better at getting shit done in other countries than it is domestically, Trump changed NAFTA, the US government can get shit done in other countries, the Federalist papers, fair but a mistake, how important geography, students don’t want to use the water from the pipes in the bathrooms, students can’t watch movies from 2023, you have to have some sort of training, when did you start becoming a reader, pick up the habit, pretty strange, deprived of videogames, sick in bed, what caused that?, movies are quite long, you need to be trained to do that, a feature length silent film, it’s really hard, you have to learn everything, kids up to mid20s, fuckin bizarre, how they were raised, in a nanny society, feelings and not facts, appreciate this art form, a standard gen-xer opinions, tictok is more addictive, colour for film is better, maybe 3d movies are better, allow more options, sometimes is appropriate, Schindler’s List in colour, objectively harder, we have to be trained to somehow, the same pipes, drinking from bottle, see that mountain up there, there’s no mines, no tailings, it tastes like nothing except, even in the bathroom, a cup of ice water from the sink in the Starbucks, we should be going to the bathroom with a cup, system?, the finishing end of this process, a lot changed during COVID, a form online, how many assignments are outstanding, ambiguous questions, you want me to fulfill a job, what’s the job?, marked online, no wonder they’ve given up, a seriously broken system, this is the good version, there aren’t lots of suicides, oppressive evil, hearing reports, what I’m hearing is we’re fucked, their ability, have you every ridden a horse? yes, have you ever driven a car?, no, musical instrument, they’re being driven, she’s unlikely to be riding a horse, cute and interesting, the level of wealth, they’re all here, have enough money to get out, it’s crazed, a reactionary, stuck in his head, what is it like in Taiwan, the rest of China, pro-Taiwan, an anti-China view, who cares which Chinese master is running you, building socialism over the next 50 years, middle class, working class jobs, roads, hospitals, convention centers, harbours, building is somehow valuable, a lot of capital, surrounded as it is, better off in the long term, an invisible barrier, a big offshore banking industry, Caribbean islands, Kentucky problems, our mountain region doesn’t have good infrastructure to get in and out, industrial parks, the land is flat so this is good, it’s not great, with the floods that came through, historic flooding, housing stock got destroyed, people getting forced out, rural communities, jobs at public institutions, the mayor of this small town, works at a hospital as a janitor, local Methodist college, the alternative, call center will drive you to drink, skeptical of AA, a debt collector, set-up payment plans, a sign of horrible government, if there is not a natural disaster, people like where they live, it is stressful to move, what are you gonna do with all those cats?, all these books, almost a full scan of Galaxy, printed enmasse, good covers, two copies of the one with The Fireman, time and friendship.

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #802 – READALONG: The Seventh by Richard Stark

Jesse, Will Emmons, Terence Blake, and Trent Reynolds talk about The Seventh by Richard Stark

Talked about on today’s show:
sometimes published as The Split, the movie kinda sucks, it should be excellent, not one character actor in it, Jim Brown, Donald Sutherland, Gene Hackman, the girls are fine, they fuckaround with the plot a lot, convincingly convinced, impossible to make Parker a character on film, watched the movie then finished the book, Parker is off the page a lot in those books, entire acts where he’s offscreen, they can’t get inside his head, the old narrator problem, voice over narration, talk to the guy sick in bed, she goes away and gets some tea, do you want lemon or sugar or cream or milk, Parker doesn’t know anything about tea, ignorant of vast swaths of humanity’s interest, pop up menu like The Terminator, he doesn’t operate like a normal human, at the end of the book we see something out of character: he laughs, emotionless or pissed off, he’s not a human, he’s some aspects or parts of human, trying to run people off the road, to test them for his crew?, the character lacks definition, they want to make Parker into a film so bad, it never works, The Sour Lemon Score, Harvey Keitel in City Of Industry (1997), one scene where they’re at a stoplight and cops pull up next to them, this little mechanism, professional and amateur, more than ten years, The Man With The Getaway Face, Ask The Parrot is better, one of the scores, The Black Ice Score, black panthers, The Score, somebody loves every book, no rhyme or reason to it, Slayground, fairly typical of the books, a heist of some kind, trouble dividing the money, thieves fall out, how did you find this book, the beginning, slow, badly prepared, the blurbs, this is amazing in pace, you can’t put it down, not sleep til u finished it, nobody knows what’s happening, the action crystalizes, false tracks, so much description, he has to describe everything, hands, the realist principle, a less good book if you took out the descriptions, a four and a half hour book, unputdownable, the time aspect, Parker thinking, time had been playing tricks like that, an hour took a week or more to be done with, the personality (despite it’s almost absence) underneath the opposition between amateur and pro, different stupidities, the pro vs. the amateur, another type of stupidity, a key, a meta level explaining other detective thrillers, richer in the second half, subtle about his philosophy, makes you want to read the books, super-formulaic, Westlake is writing a formula, he’s being playful, I guess for my seventh book, 1966, feels a little bit earlier, fins on the cars, middle sixties, the secret hidden philosophy or anxieties behind all of Westlake’s fiction, obsessed with insurance, Abe Klinger, a temporary condition that had lasted about twelve years, television was to blame, an insidious monster in living rooms, taxes getting worse every year, barely possible, except for the rotten box, kiddie matinee on Saturday, always a double feature, a nice friendly neighborhood theater, the public library, long suffering voices, in every Westlake Parker book, we get inside other character’s minds, they become sympathetic, reconciling all these modes of being, insurance is worry, it’s a concern, “detective” thriller, this has a mystery in it, failed, he writes crime fiction, closer to suspense than mystery, the light face and the dark face detective, present himself as an agent of change, The Risk Profession, a murder mystery about insurance, successful, the Dortmunder series, high 20s, built up the crew, Kifka, Abe Klinger, had he not been shot, sympathize with him, an amazing choice, wrote this just for money, television or sensationalism came along and ruined everything, very brainful, uses thoughts to create characters, the killer’s problem is he’s an amateur, a non-functioning penis, vituperative girlfriend, bad with his hands, imagery that goes with the sword, it felt good in his hands, letters from prison, criminals get away with it, chance to get away with a crime, Westlake is cerebral, a non-cerebral character, the Reacher series, powered through it, he’s no longer a Terminator, an attempt at acting (was bad), the first season was very solid, had reviewed the book, he’s not Conan, Conan doesn’t have a pension, Conan is not patriotic, our anti-hero is not patriotic, a little bit of Parker’s backstory, a criminal when he was in the army, he doesn’t love his country, he doesn’t think about that at all, a red blooded American, spit on the flag, Westlake is not a super-patriot, surrounded by patriots, Westlake’s real passion, he like community theater, finances his fun with his skill, a furniture maker, put out of business, so now he’s a criminal, Grofield, puts his heisting money into his theatre, in The Score, Parker puts together the heist, show up and look like a manager, the detail work on the other characters, a depth of character, figuring out life philosophy, how to be in the world, what’s the point of crime fiction?, edifying, in this particular instance, the leader, the money was stolen out from under him, abandon this and run away?, an amateur stole from him, with his seventh, Westlake rewarding Parker, a professional pirate, doesn’t have a nation, makes war on all the world, and is vengeful on those who break the covenant, they’re all armed, a homosexual relationship, you got to go to a doctor!, goes vengeful on Parker, acting irrationally, they’re not his friends, they are colleagues, they are comrades, the best Parker on film is Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, you’re acting like a punk, various psychopathic characters, a very Parker/Stark scene, a war of all of us against the institutions that are betraying us, the cop is probably the smartest character in the book, they’re doppelgangers, family life has made him weak, all that’s crap, the hardness in the eyes, sit for an exam to become a Terminator, need more training, Parker is a stripped down version of a human, there’s no hubcaps, the engine runs great, there’s a crack in the windshield, Parker’s sexual stuff, no sexual need or interest, all he does for three days is fuck, he’s not normal, Sherlock Holmes, A Study In Scarlet, zero interest in astronomy, completely ignores it, he knows about Chinese Tongs and the KKK, that’s kind of Parker too, his definition of what is extraneous is a whole lot more, he has no interesting in that, you’re a fool if you believe it, people call Parker a shark, what he’s not doing, a white sandy bitch named Michelle, completely stripped down, in stripping it down, Moriarty is famous for The Dynamics Of An Asteroid, interested in puppeteering things, he even abandons his face, plastic surgery, his name doesn’t matter, “Call me Joe”, Mr. Brown, Mr. Blue, Mr. Pink, to pull off a big heist, better off with no partners, his human foibles (wanting to have sex with a lady), makes him a bad Terminator, offered to him like a sacrifice to a god, and then he laughs, neat little bow, none of this would have happened, what makes him not a robot, so iconic, so compelling, Mel Gibson is not Parker, Lee Marvin is not Parker, how do you do that tea scene?, only in novel form, what’s the point of this?, made the argument, getting into the philosophy of life, the same appeal, what does it mean to have this kind of person, go through the character list, the least fucked up guy is the cop, the least sketched, he makes a great breakthrough and is killed before he can say it, he figures out, Morry, on Will’s deep question, read these things if you want a point from them, what’s the point of having these people in the world, having unplugged people (from the system), born that way, became that way, the partially unplugged, the craft guy, outlet malls, sort of yet another image of Bartleby (the Scrivner), more active, we can’t be Bartleby because it is humiliating, why is it humiliating, Conan is always an active agent in a story he’s thrust into, literally fights a god, Westlake is torturing Parker and entertaining us, this is not just entertainment, about life philosophy, compared to Reacher, Conan is not a patriot, animalistic efficiency, we animals, tricked into patriotism and friendships, allies not friends, judging them on their reliability, a little out of character, determined to go get this guy, they guy doesn’t know who he is, makes him act stupidly, rewarding the reader, more than one dynamic, Butcher’s Moon, Grofield gets kidnapped, logically he shouldn’t be doing it, taking it as a personal insult, a rationalization, tie up a loose end, he doesn’t know what Parker looks like, he doesn’t know his name, middle sized North Eastern town, Parker is married, driving a Toyota Avalon, commonlaw married, as long as he doesn’t bring it home, Westlake in later life, knows who he is, still heisting, how to be in the world, a knife-edge sort of thing, Westlake is a humourist, literally executes a guy, superstitious, Parker picks up the gun and shoots him with it, please help me, making yourself submit, bureaucracies are not good at helping people, superstitious fool with a dick problem who is a murder, why he is mad at Parker, a lot of sex in this book for a book not about sex, Parker thinks he’s just being logical, he’s restoring order in his universe, not logical that an amateur could beat a professional, a personal affront that must be punished, once you’ve unplugged from the system and be a heister, a lucky coincidence, a little off-topic, bring it in, Jesse does a lot of tutoring, a “leadership” class, pretend that they’re teaching them leadership, it makes no sense, automatically a non-leader, how well you behave, write a land acknowledgment, what leaders do, this land was stolen improperly, insert band name here, that was really bad that we stole it from them, land claims and treaties, that’s submitting to a system, if you control your class with a whip, a classroom full of kids with whips, guns and knives, leadership is really weird, everybody has guns and they can all shoot you at any point, not a real thing guys, an assortment of associates, big cave man energy, where do chiefs come from?, people who don’t have a lot of concrete in their sidewalks, characters of ridicule, similarly strange adjacent jobs, medicine man, wise old woman, takes an active role to try to get the money back, wants to get revenge, a professional is a person who gets wins aka the money, wanting things that an amateur would want, when somebody hits you, hitting you with words, violence is a good solution, a tit for tat, escalating, punishing with impunity, stealing from a football game, an ivy league football game, a charity day, they spent all day, one of the most complicated things to do, passed over really quickly, they focus on the wrong things, the logical scaffolding, the most sensational thing, he doesn’t describe that, his book is a paired down thing, it is four tapes, it feels bigger than it is, time going strange, jump backwards in time, the complication, the complication, the conclusion, fascinated by the character, what he’s saying about people and how to be in the world, the guy drives an old car, he can upgrade to an Edsel, gets a pat on the head, when he goes to his boss, his boss never graduated high school, why would that matter, this is something I understand, the cap and gown shit, a place of punishment, i need to go to university, that’s where the fun is, not playing by the rules, working for Klaus Schwab, obey the laws that make sense, nobody listens, what are they gonna do about it?, insurance, financial insecurity, that money not being in your pocket at all times, an aspect of the larger thing, the book that came before it, years salting away money, gigantic nest egg, the end of the previous book, no faith in institutions, the government is corrupt, taking your good pills, everybody in Parkerland, this person is a really great person, you know what his problems are, very wholesome, revenge is unhealthy for you, resentment is a poison that you take to make another person die, you have to take care of yourself, never see him on a roulette table, he’s not 007, he’s the opposite of James Bond, that James Bond book Westlake wrote, hired to write a James Bond movie set in Hong Kong, actors, rights issues, filed the serial numbers off, Tomorrow Never Dies, Westlake is not Ian Fleming, an engineer not a spy, really long, the writing is never bad, they’re all experiments, a formula always works, he was trying to write a Jack Reacher book, a thick thriller you could sell at airports, Dancing Aztecs, cash-ins, decadent, if you just look at the handwork he does with characters, a little bit about Parker’s attitude towards people’s names, Mutt and Jeff, a clumsy haste, that’s comedy writing there, don’t move, Cops And Robbers, lower middle class cops become criminals, a foile a deux, The Outfit, doesn’t feel like a Parker novel at all, The Stepfather, two sequels, about a man’s mind, Block is more straight up, very cerebral, why do people like reading Stephen King books?, children and children’s psychology, grappling with stuff in fiction, largely about how to live in the United States, a college course out of his books, largely about political corruption, civic corruption, openly mocked, the wrong wing of communism, an imperial country, through the course of life, disidentified with Australia, disidentified with English, a rootless cosmopolitan, probably more Australia, Nice, an anti-Proustian experience, unrecognizable, the basic elements, Hyde Park, Sydney, the opera house, the harbour bridge, the sea and the sky, that particular sea and the sky, an American flag, red paint on the sidewalks, chain restaurants, too big, don’t like Justin, nice people everywhere, Turkey, Kentucky, being rooted, Frederick Heimbach, making digs, not committed, what trauma, personality defect or personality superpower, lose faith in institutions, what patriotism is, love the flag as the symbol of that thing, so many different kinds of Christian, soldiers and anti-soldiers, pacifists?, violence, violence at the dinner table, responses to violence and violation, Parker was on to something, refers to the woman, a receptacle, slightly more than that, a liability, annoying, fuck her while he’s sick, comedy, helping you, keepin you warm, that person seems more well adjusted than Parker, able to hold down a job, their backstory, sex him up, a dry run for Claire, healthy marriage, don’t bring the corpses into the garage, coffee will be ready in 10 minutes, says when he’s done, seen this relationship before, you have your hobbies she has hers, the sex while sick, she never caught, the other woman in the story, the madam who talks to much, always wants to have chats, Hazel?, Madge!, a retired hooker, a cathouse runner, showing up at Madge’s place, that’s not Parker, lovingly, friends or something?, she gets one of the sixths, the beat up spot, Book 1, Chapter 4, less than a hundred bills to his name, outside of Scranton, our president, strange conversation, fun, a Kifkaesque conversation, in her 60s now, when age retired her, too talkative, too nervous, rented mostly by the hour, stay and talk, Parker not being able, I’ll go there, I’ll fix the drinks, everyday was old home week, her gossiping, she never shut it with insiders, beautiful prop work, 4 cassettes, 4 hours 22 minutes, a weird life philosophy going on, we all gotta deal in the world, shut up, maybe, is this how to behave?, self-contained, not completely, people who can’t sit alone in a room with a book, where ethyl was sitting at the desk, mentally retarded, Bob Negly, the second Parker book, best Parker book?, The Score, the sandwich in between two classics, an old communist back in the day, he’s dumb now, a doctor who does facial reconstructions, he doesn’t think real good, the retarded girl, why did he do that, he’s really good with character work, he’s just so strange, it’s not representation, exactly, flawed characters keep people in their lives out of duty, duty, explaining why Parker goes after Grofield, when somebody does something wrong, make things even, rather than revenge, very subtle, nemesis, fate or The Cold Equations, everything is logical and that’s the way things are, correct the anomaly without emotion, a nemesis who takes a personal interest, the god, infringements of the cosmic order, that was wrong, wrong as in it was a mistake, acting improperly, violating the tao, a big part of it, something you don’t appreciate, a violation, rectification, correction, an nemetic, various way of being taciturn, a defect, useful, she doesn’t blab about what she learns, they don’t talk back, a scene where Madge blabs for an hour and a half, sits there and lets her talk, chatter away, Parker doesn’t watch TV, Lawrence Block’s characters read , hangs out on the beach, does job, he needs to know the psychology of people, he sums them up, studies and analyzes and sums up, “Parker didn’t”, often not diding things, that opening is so nice, it went with a dry cracking sound, Parker raised his foot, the door popped open like it was surprised, his plans were loused up now, Parker didn’t want drinks, no to Negly, a joke about vengeance, it wasn’t cash Negly wanted, the amateur first, find out how the situation now stood, “handy”, Parker uses people for his own good, as pieces on a chessboard, manipulating himself, drink cigarettes and eat beer, always in opposition, more of the same, he’s not on the property ladder, playing his own game, what makes you an amateur is you don’t get the money, convincing, why Jesse likes Parker so much, why Jesse likes Conan so much, Solomon Kane is insane, funny that you mention that, the Del Rey collection, wish there had been a lot more, doesn’t write a lot of novels, all about Satan, there’s only his mind thinking there is Satan, morally insane, he think he’s serving god, slays visions, whatever is happening you’re delusional, he never reconciled some of the contradictions, Staff of Solomon, buddy buddy with the witchdoctor, derives his power from Satan, the right hand of vengeance, more vengeance than nemesis, another big gap, better than Conan stories, we did pretty good, the Harlan Ellison tweet, the land of fear, throw out you fucking copy of Finnegan’s Wake, very Harlan Ellison, even when his novel doesn’t gel, heights and insights, not a character guy, he’s good at that, that’s really good, he’s really on to something, let’s rob a rock concert, let’s rob a casino, variations on a theme, the weirdness of how to be in the world, the books exist for the fallout, the heist is never the focus, when the stuff hits the fan, what he likes to explore with these, he was a cop in the airforce, white caps [“snow tops”], Dortmund, a German beer, puts everything he’s experiencing and puts it in his stories, The Green Eagle Score, an unproduced screenplay for that, owned by a major studio, lucky that they didn’t make it, Parker has a brother, no, Parker doesn’t have family, Ransom, Black Ice, Green Eagle, Sour Lemon, Rare Coin, the most violent, torture stuff, mostly offscreen, they didn’t pay for the rights when they made City Of Industry, attempts to try to capture Westlake, there’s problems with it, how many Westlake films were produced, one of the most adapted guys ever, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Brothers Keepers, post show scheduling, a Ray Cummings, Cat-Woman by Ray Cummings, 13 pages, Selina’s Big Score, it is better not to picture Parker, watching the movie adaptations, the best Parker on screen was Robert Duvall, he’s nothing like Parker, The Outfit, the philosophy doesn’t translate, a really good read, Stark, all on purpose, a webcomic called Gravedigger, Point Blank, where to find it now, track everything, real comics, Lee Marvin on the cover, a lady lying on a floor topless, a dude wrapped up in ropes, a trapper’s shack in Yukon, the mad gods laughed at my helpless plight, a murdering ravening beast, shudder pulp, cringe pulp, weird menace, later 1930s early 1940s, a lot of torture, weird cults, Mike Vendetti started getting into it, finally found my genre, sloppily written stories, racism, sex and torture, with deep philosophical reflection on modes of maleness, men want to save women, meet cute, hooded cultists, you go into cave, branding with swastikas, to make them nude, working theory, designed to make men have romantic adventures on how to make girlfriends, not a great prose stylist, the other options on Ray Cummings, Space Liner X-37, renegade Venusian, manacled hands, Mark Nelson, mixing it up with something good, not a good reputation amongst us, Cirsova, bad Alex?, that Alex, one is better than the other?, morally?, you want to pair up?, something that we’ll know it will be good, next open slot, time to research, something thematically related, rising intonation, Terence is powerful like that, Call Me Joe, in the science fiction industry, a collection of planetary adventures, Dragon Queen Of Jupiter, all read by the same narrator, trying to play it cutesy, In The Orbit Of Saturn by R.F. Starzl, Stupendous Spectacles Of The Solar System In Space, Prize Ship [by Philip K. Dick], 1931, the dreaded solar scourge, spend to much time on Mars you go mad, “space madness”, David H. Keller, awful and long, detective tryyna figure out why this chinese religion is so popular, dresses up as a Chinese, underneath the altar, a drug front, he can do wrong, religion is the opium of the people, warping himself, all of the Taine stories, somebody has to do the job, for the collective, liking your tweets because I like your tweets, might even quote tweets, we can have a beef, whistle at tweets, The Gun by Philip K. Dick, a trigger warning, a content warning, Tommy Patrick Ryan, bad idea, unsuccessfully modeled my mind, land acknowledgment, don’t fall for it, don’t like hypocrisy, an Indian community, Indians who take advantage of their status to self-aggrandize, not better people, it’s okay if a woman bombs us, fighting a straw man, am I?, no!, taking advantage, how big a problem, Inuit and the Metis, just above a million one hundred thousands, as a percentage, cultural genocide, actual genocide, less Indian wars, we have to be careful, for what reason?, Paul getting in trouble or not getting in trouble (at the hands of western administrators), it was western liberals, Camestros Felapton?, liberals collaborating with or submitting to communists, just did it, hilarious, back to the Hugos, hott goss, if Paul had won Fan Writer, we shouldn’t have a convention in China because of the Uyghur genocide, if you stretch the definition, vs. actual genocide in Gaza, because they’re cowards, they don’t beleive the video of their eyes, they’d rather believe the government lies, tagging in that word is calling it a cultural holocaust, murder and culture destruction, deliberate and widespread attempt to steal kids and their language, Jesse concentration camp, particularly egregious, the previous convention was in Canada, nobody was all up in arms about dead children in Canada, anti-China hate, Nixon is a lot more reasonable, Nancy Pelosi trying to start WWIII with China, The Mad Planet by Murray Leinster, Demons Of Cthulhu, a concession to will, Starman Jones, a concession to Jesse, The Stone Dragon by R. Murray Gilchrist, sweaty looking guy with a nice mustache, Temple Bar, The Yellow Book, The Crimson Weaver, a great Edge, the Valley of the Willowbreaks, sleeping side by side, fresh gathered heather, wallless bridge, The Domain of the Crimson , a beldame, ossier, enter not the domain of the crimson weaver, behold I was beautiful once, discovered the foulness of her bosom, she is mad, that sounds good, Eldritch Archives, The Werewolf’s Daughter by H. Warner Munn, Farmer friends, you should, Time Is The Simplest Thing by Clifford D. Simak, the beginning premise blew Terence’s mind, Exiles To Glory by Jerry Pournelle, a right wing guy, he’s wrong, because welfare slums, a senior engineering student at UCLA, murderous “youth gang”, kills an inner city resident and has to run, you don’t kill juvies in this town, on the run and all of earth there was no place to hide, 144 pages, 5-6 hours, YA, a response to Heinlein, interested in right-wingers, tarred by people who claim to be left wingers, unacceptable and wrong and hypocritical, patriotic communism, very internationalist, the neighbourhood and the biome, Kentucky is an area in addition to a state, used to be a statehouse, the long view on nations, too soon to tell, Zhou Enlai on the French Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, Mao’s right hand man, educated by a rich Chinese man, studied in France, how do you feel about funding this young man, the just so story, being funded by a rich man, signed up, solved, What Mad Universe by Fredric Brown, how did we get Scott on there?, The Fearless Benjamin Lay by Marcus Rediker, vegetarian dwarf, vegetarianism is a mistake, maybe too soon to tell, Hitler and Benjamin Lay, probably both liked dogs but not to eat, Hitler had two eyes, you like architecture, hey you live in Europe, the stupidest argument, the guy pops out of a hole in a well, and yet you live in a society, as a response on twitter, so stupid, latent patriotic tendencies, an episode of American history, Evan is fiercely patriotic, it is a vice, Evan loves vices, he wants to earn enough money and be a prepper?, Wisconsin, he has failed to Terence properly, Mad Max novelization, might be a problem, motorcycle and biker gangs, one of the finest films, Mad Max II, an extravaganza of awesome, the dog dying, baby schmaybe, the grandma with the shotgun, Cundilini with his hand missing, likes Shakespeare with motorcycle gangs, 1981, rust on the details, Thunderdome is not as good, almost a comedy, fun things, more accessible to children, Tina Turner, the blue lagoon, great character, be the queen of capitalism, that weird airplane, native Australian project, air taxi/crop-duster, who isn’t in to planes?, cars are pretty good too, transformers, they can hide, they’re in disguise, secret identity, secretly millions of years old, I can transform, Dragon Queen Of Jupiter, fascinated by the world of Mad Max, Audiobooks For The Damned, funny names and numbers, all pirate, doing it out of love vs. commercial purposes, Commercialism: The Curse Of Art by Lovecraft’s wife, I must fund him, I must save him, I can save her, she’s like that with Lovecraft, none of us can be saved in the end, recorded in his car, AFTB #68, the account exists in a limbo state, the cancellers, really trolly, I like this person because they like copyright, fuck off, you can’t get me, ignore it, their collection of dung beetle photographs, probably awesome, very interested in the passions of the people, Midwestern Marx, Liger, patriotic communist, who is Destiny?, Twitch, in conversation with other people, Steven Kenneth Bonnell II, it is not genocide if it is during a war, don’t tell him, Omaha, Nebraska, superwhite, most Cubans in the united states, dispossessed, Evan says “I like Vaush”, he likes him, streamers or youtubers, American youtuber, the Hugo kerfuffle, used to have one of those ear gages things, about audiobooks, passionately doing, voting for Biden to help your portfolio, Scott Miller, he’s not an analyzer, 2022 output, Imagination, Planet Stories, episode zero, recording the unrecorded, noble, a perfectionist, make it as good as possible, good at voices, got pretty good taste, I’m in love with you, sir, one everyday, Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, far enough out, one question about Queen Of Air And Darkness, orienting question, some blood quantum Cherokee, just as mentioned, the woman is like let them keep their ways, put them on a reservation, interesting of course, what that’s about, what’s the significance of that if any?, Dercum Audio, Thompson, or Tetty?, for the sake of Will, the name of the author in the files, free audiobooks, Tom Tetty, the last glow of the last sunset, left in the ‘if you your cassette is not working’, collecting stamps, media archaeology, how much tech has changed, Books On Tape, amalgamated and amalgamated, now Audible owns everything, whole scandal going on, Findaway voices scandal, go back to the basics: audiobooks for the damned, an Amber series fan fiction, John Betancourt, costs money, disgusting, how to do a lot of copyright, actively trying to make money at a basically impossible task, megapacks, legal dispute over the word “megapack”, trying to make a living, sad for Paul, he’s playing a rigged game, you know you’re getting scammed, worse and more corrupt, this book sucks, why is it getting a Hugo award, They’d Rather Be Right, Mark Clifton, co authored book, why are you playing, school’s business is not education, obey orders, learn propaganda, babysit you, not the prevailing sentiment, so mean to his students, otherwise you are subject to them, how would you know?, the etymology, solved with drills, shampoo is a scam, why is shampoo a scam?, of course, I’m normal, it smells nice, soap does not have the same effect, axe body spray, bad for them, that they have to use up, that don’t help them, we’re taught it, what did people do before toothpaste?, we just buy the shit they tell us to, a history of shampoo, since ancient times, long hair, a daily indulgence, putting yourself in the upperclass, something people do, learning to play piano, they feel like they need to, it’s all unconscious, what shampoo do you use?, if you’re a girl, get away with having no hair, punish girls in France for having babies with nazis, nazi babies, her hair!, proportional to the crime, a truth and reconciliation process, just solved it with a haircut, as much as a woman values your hair, you can’t have books for six years, a horrible punishment, you’d have to talk to people, what books have you read recently? they have to struggle, some school assignment, can’t we be friends?, people are talking about a book you should read, so rare, do French people read at all?, they read more than Americans, probably dying a cultural affectation, a sociological study of who reads non-fiction cultural books, it is good to learn stuff, some books are not meant to be read, anything written by Barack Obama, briefing books for their activists, Hillary Clinton, report on what’s in there, they don’t know what they’re saying to their ghost writers, a lot of shit for school, get to read Othello, Shakespeare is so fuckin awesome, the sexy one, The Taming Of The Shrew, way in, new theory just dropped, Iago’s the badguy, undermine Othello and his marriage, Iago’s gay for Othello, pretty good theory, I hate the moor, you act like you’re obsessed with him, interpretations, reaching for Desdemona, Iago reaches for Othello, a cool interpretation, a cool tragedy, this last information, shampoo your hair, eating and sleeping, ammonium laurel suphate, rub the glycol all around, people won’t object to your hair anymore, eat more yeast, some problems with flatulence, we’ll book it next time, relationship with shampoo, how often?, how many ablutions per day, once a month?, more than once a week, struggle to say more than that, another product, try never to use it, long hair, big, afro like, get a bidet, bidets are my new religion, buy a second one, very useful, saves money, cleanly, saves time, very Heinleinian, the fresher, oh no!, used to being clean, not covered in paper shit, mandatory, standard, a propaganda campaign, if you learn nothing else: bidets are the way, blog posts, setting up a blog is annoying, manage account names, to give Musk money, longform reads, tweet threads, an opportunity cost, twitter is a reading diary, searchable, shareable, David H. Keller 2023 tweets, a popular magazine, Popular Publications, topics Will could explore, freeform, follow your passion, engaging with audio, get more fiction into you, sitting sucks, not wasting time and money, post there, if you got offline, the internet has been ruined, google doesn’t listen blogs anymore, they don’t exist anymore, defunded, duckduckgo started caving to the baddies, go to the websites, what’s a better search engine?, the dot com, blog search, so focused on extracting money it doesn’t do its service anymore, the guy in the store today, he thought he was a good institution, a part of the community, enjoying the things he provided to the community, mom and pop restaurants still exist in small towns, what happened?, it’s all wrecked, it’s tough, store restaurant gas station, cute and nice, minimal population, cheap land, people with time and interest in being able to subsidize a small gas station restaurant, this doesn’t seem so foreign, a familiar Kentucky thing, Culver’s, ice cream custard?, a thick ice cream, best frozen custard, Dairy Queen Blizzard, Concrete mixer, mix in your rocks, have you ever had a jelly baby?, Doctor Who candy, a dalek, penny candy for kids, shaped like little babies, better flavours, blackcurrant, delicious and subtle, blackberries are free, nobody grows blackberries on purpose, her microclimate is very dry, not a lot of extra water for blackberries, a post a week, the pace, what Will’s doing with his life right now, sequester, a tablet, dreams, no shampoo, eating black currants, look at the list of ingredients and then look them up, Harry’s mens products, accused of enjoying the smell of things to much, overdosed on perfumes, laundry detergent with no scent, unscented detergent, unscented cat litter, you should smell like nothing, stone scented deodorant, antiperspirants, toothpaste, toothpicks, Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, boarding school, ashes, doesn’t sound delicious, enjoying the flavour of toothpaste, there’s no movements like this, veganism is the new religion, anti-scent religion, how sensitive people are to autism, not just stuff injected into your body, covered in rashes, a sensitive organ, the whole purpose is to make fucking money, all products produced under capitalism, how these things go, love LibriVox, recording audiobooks in their basements, a prison project for prisoners to record audiobooks, a serial killer recorded some V.C. Andrews, very interesting, prison book programs, you could study and it is not mandatory, a privilege, turn them all into lawyers, a student today, push a lot of science fiction and fantasy, the excuse is vocab, vocabulary through poems, god forbid, essays, so fucking awful, book introductions, little editorial prefaces, Robert Silverberg’s Worlds Of Wonder, what he thinks are awesome stories, Alfred Bester, C.L. Moore, so good, paid him money, The Monsters by Robert Sheckley, sent to Scott, Scanners Live In Vain, Colony, Light Of Other Days, Day Million, Who Am I Which Are You, The Triumph Of Honest Bellamy, Don’t Forget To Kill Your Wife, Fuzzy Puzzle Odyssey, Six Plots For The Price Of One, I Trusted The Rug Completely, A Boy, A Girl, A Lovestory, 164, respect yes, wobbly publishers, fine feelings, a demi-god, 1953, Philadelphia, Columbia, professional writers, verges are uncomfortable places, immense lobby, Harlan Ellison, a little stir in the lobby, a slender graceful man, that’s Ted Sturgeon, James Blish, Willy Ley, recently skipped an essay by him, grinny broadly, buoyant, envy, admiration, hope, on every contents page, Untouched By Human Hands, with very close attention, role models, his instant rise to fame, tremendously prolific, tabulated by author, 24 stories, only Philip K. Dick had more with 28, he made it all look so easy, just grace, agility, ingenuity, Henry Kuttner, out of the simplest materials, cleverness, delicacy of touch, trading jokes with my fellow celebrities, no story worth reading ever was easy to write, products of anguished revision, keep up a the job day in and out, a lot fore people today, vunderjar, Seventh Victim, scant 4000 words, turning the familiar upside down, wondrous, the dissonance that gives rise to the plot, the tone will be light, it was undoubtedly the newest thing, compact, uncluttered, efficient, a substance resembling fire, an astonishing hook, they slithered down the mountainside together, a murder mystery?, a science fiction story, socially desirable for men to kill their wives, he will need only 4000 words to do the job, the aliens are puzzled by the intentions, suspense, holding his reader’s interest, the ritual slaughter of wives, most of us, too simple, but what? what!, a calm serious manner, are they moral?, this from a man who has just killed his wife, among the other debaters, hideous aliens, morality is very important, the visitors are so repellent, put them out of their misery, lean sparse style, to the surplus female pen, 2 more pages, the important thing to find out, if it has become apparent yet, the moral beings, we’re back with Gulliver in the land of the Houyhnhnm, the misanthropic Swift, fable, plausibility was not an issue, cunning brains and useful hands, doodle up, a lot of people need to learn this, his world of wifekillers, some convincing rationale, pure exposition, married females lay eggs every day, simply a fact of biology there, the problem of surplus women, polygamy, too intricate, a great nunnery far away, the gentlest possible solution, the grotesque solution, serial polygamy, otherwise excluded, casual unthinking sexism, allowed to reach maturity, married sisters, the next group of wives, meanwhile, the leisure to spend their time in philosophical debate, annoyingly deficient in logic, Heinlein would like this, a splendidly logical system, overenthusiastic slaughter, equilibrium, past mating age, mortal combat, we who subscribe, modern India today, wife-murder, governed by high moral imperative, telling untruths, a host of other evil customs, destroy our way of life, decent and righteous customs, so elegantly constructed, parable so deftly, craftsmanship, light entertainment, inspiring esteem and envy, already a master of his craft, that’s how to write an essay, just crank him out, undertaken a program to do so, secret hidden stuff, seeing it and making it explicitly, making you see stuff, vocab words at least, you need to understand what they’re for and what the teacher wants, if they judge you on your dancing, a better hobby than writing an exercise, group dance, usually about half an hour, a movie review, movies are better than TV shows, reviews Star Trek episodes, some good Next Generation, take notes, The Twilight Zone, you don’t know what you’re getting each time, generally science fiction, a fantasy, a satire, social commentary, quite difficult to watch anthologies back to back to back, find the original stories, look at them in that light, very focused right now, easily distract, tutoring, coffee, Connor, No-Man’s Land by John Buchan, fairy cave men, exciting plans, a chapter in The Way The Future Was by Frederick Pohl, the admirable Pohl, teenage dalliance with communism, Amazing Stories novel, The Space Merchants, a rush job, Kornbluth has sharp teeth, a moderating influence?, sleeping in the stairwells, making us laugh, Search The Sky by Cyril M. Kornbluth and Frederik Pohl, The Advent On Channel 12 by C.M. Kornbluth, cheap server, servers in North Korea, servers on a satellite, what the fuck is this?, he’s really smart and he doesn’t play dumb, Ambrose Bierce, tricky, start with the famous one, also a French one, An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge, Ambrose Bierce is like Mark Twain’s evil brother, he’s still alive!, 1914 to cover the Mexican Revolution, may have got got, see you in cyberspace.

The Split by Richard Stark

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #447 – The Kennel by Maurice Level

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #447

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Kennel by Maurice Level

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

The Kennel was first published in French as “Le Chenil” in Le Journal, 1906.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #444 – The Special Exhibit by Robert Sheckley

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #444

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Special Exhibit by Robert Sheckley

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

The Special Exhibit was first published in Esquire, October 1953.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!